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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/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         17th October 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
  32 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
  33 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
  34 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
  35 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
  36 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
  37 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
  38
  39 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
  40 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
  41 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
  42 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
  43 of this story.)</p>
  44
  45 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
  46 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
  47 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
  48 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
  49 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
  50 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
  51 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
  52 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
  53 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
  54 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
  55
  56 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
  57 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
  58 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
  59 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
  60
  61 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
  62 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
  63
  64 <p><blockquote><pre>
  65 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
  66 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
  67 </pre></blockquote></p>
  68
  69 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
  70 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
  71 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
  72 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
  73 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
  74 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
  75 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
  76 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
  77
  78 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
  79 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
  80
  81 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
  82 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
  83 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
  84 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
  85 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
  86
  87 <p><blockquote><pre>
  88 Task: isenkram-packages
  89 Section: hardware
  90 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
  91  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
  92  proposed.
  93 Test-new-install: show show
  94 Relevance: 8
  95 Packages: for-current-hardware
  96
  97 Task: isenkram-firmware
  98 Section: hardware
  99 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 100  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
 101  packages are proposed.
 102 Test-new-install: mark show
 103 Relevance: 8
 104 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
 105 </pre></blockquote></p>
 106
 107 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
 108 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
 109 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
 110 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
 111 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
 112
 113 <p><blockquote><pre>
 114 #!/bin/sh
 115 #
 116 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
 117 export PATH
 118 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 119 </pre></blockquote></p>
 120
 121 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
 122 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
 123
 124 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
 125 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
 126 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
 127 install.</p>
 128
 129 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
 130 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
 131 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</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/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
 147       </div>
 148       <div class="date">
 149          4th October 2014
 150       </div>
 151       <div class="body">
 152         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
 153 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
 154 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
 155 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
 156
 157 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
 158
 159 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
 160 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
 161 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
 162
 163       </div>
 164       <div class="tags">
 165
 166
 167         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>.
 168
 169
 170       </div>
 171     </div>
 172     <div class="padding"></div>
 173
 174     <div class="entry">
 175       <div class="title">
 176         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
 177       </div>
 178       <div class="date">
 179          4th October 2014
 180       </div>
 181       <div class="body">
 182         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
 183 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
 184 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
 185 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
 186 Dibb.</p>
 187
 188 <p>I just wrapped up
 189 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
 190 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
 191 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
 192 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
 193 0.17.</p>
 194
 195 <ul>
 196
 197  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
 198  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
 199    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
 200  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
 201  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
 202  <li>Fix include orders</li>
 203  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
 204  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
 205  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
 206    the palette size is the same.</li>
 207  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
 208  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
 209  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
 210  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
 211    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
 212
 213 </ul>
 214
 215 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
 216 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
 217 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
 218
 219       </div>
 220       <div class="tags">
 221
 222
 223         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/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 224
 225
 226       </div>
 227     </div>
 228     <div class="padding"></div>
 229
 230     <div class="entry">
 231       <div class="title">
 232         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
 233       </div>
 234       <div class="date">
 235         26th September 2014
 236       </div>
 237       <div class="body">
 238         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 239 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
 240 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
 241 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
 242 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
 243 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
 244 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
 245 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
 246 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
 247 future.  The
 248 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
 249 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
 250 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
 251 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
 252 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
 253
 254 <p>First, download the test ISO via
 255 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
 256 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
 257 or rsync (use
 258 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
 259 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
 260 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
 261 install with some tweaking.</p>
 262
 263 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
 264 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
 265
 266 <p><blockquote><pre>
 267 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
 268 </pre></blockquote></p>
 269
 270 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
 271 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
 272 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
 273 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
 274
 275 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
 276 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
 277 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
 278 your need.</p>
 279
 280 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
 281 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
 282 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
 283 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
 284 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
 285 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
 286 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
 287 days.</p>
 288
 289 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
 290 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
 291 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
 292 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
 293 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
 294 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
 295 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
 296 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
 297 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
 298
 299 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
 300 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
 301 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
 302
 303       </div>
 304       <div class="tags">
 305
 306
 307         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>.
 308
 309
 310       </div>
 311     </div>
 312     <div class="padding"></div>
 313
 314     <div class="entry">
 315       <div class="title">
 316         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
 317       </div>
 318       <div class="date">
 319         25th September 2014
 320       </div>
 321       <div class="body">
 322         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
 323 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
 324 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
 325 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
 326 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
 327 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
 328 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
 329 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
 330 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
 331 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
 332 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
 333 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
 334 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
 335
 336 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
 337 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
 338 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
 339 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
 340 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
 341 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
 342 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
 343 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
 344 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
 345 list</a>. :)</p>
 346
 347       </div>
 348       <div class="tags">
 349
 350
 351         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/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 352
 353
 354       </div>
 355     </div>
 356     <div class="padding"></div>
 357
 358     <div class="entry">
 359       <div class="title">
 360         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
 361       </div>
 362       <div class="date">
 363         16th September 2014
 364       </div>
 365       <div class="body">
 366         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
 367 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
 368 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
 369 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
 370 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
 371 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
 372 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
 373 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
 374 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
 375 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
 376 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
 377 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
 378 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
 379 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
 380
 381 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
 382 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
 383 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
 384 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
 385 depend on the small and clever package
 386 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
 387 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
 388 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
 389 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
 390 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
 391 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
 392 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
 393 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
 394 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
 395 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
 396 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
 397
 398 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
 399 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
 400 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
 401 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
 402 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
 403 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
 404 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
 405 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
 406 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
 407 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
 408 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
 409 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
 410 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
 411 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
 412 dialog.</p>
 413
 414 <p><table>
 415
 416 <tr>
 417 <th>Machine/setup</th>
 418 <th>Original tasksel</th>
 419 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
 420 <th>Reduction</th>
 421 </tr>
 422
 423 <tr>
 424 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
 425 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
 426 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
 427 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
 428 </tr>
 429
 430 <tr>
 431 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
 432 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
 433 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
 434 <td>23 min 40%</td>
 435 </tr>
 436
 437 <tr>
 438 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
 439 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
 440 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
 441 <td>11 min 50%</td>
 442 </tr>
 443
 444 <tr>
 445 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
 446 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
 447 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
 448 <td>2 min 33%</td>
 449 </tr>
 450
 451 <tr>
 452 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
 453 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
 454 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
 455 <td>4 min 21%</td>
 456 </tr>
 457
 458 </table></p>
 459
 460 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
 461 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
 462 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
 463 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
 464 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
 465 installed.</p>
 466
 467 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
 468 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
 469 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
 470 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
 471 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
 472 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
 473 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
 474 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
 475 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
 476 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
 477 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
 478 for the entire installation.</p>
 479
 480 <p>I've implemented this in the
 481 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
 482 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
 483 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
 484 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
 485 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
 486
 487 <p><blockquote><pre>
 488 #!/bin/sh
 489 set -e
 490 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 491 info() {
 492     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
 493 }
 494 error() {
 495     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
 496 }
 497 override_install() {
 498     apt-install eatmydata || true
 499     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
 500         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 501             file=/usr/bin/$bin
 502             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
 503             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
 504                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
 505                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
 506                     > /target$file.edu
 507                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
 508                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 509                     --rename --quiet --add $file
 510                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
 511             else
 512                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
 513             fi
 514         done
 515     else
 516         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
 517     fi
 518 }
 519
 520 override_install
 521 </pre></blockquote></p>
 522
 523 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
 524 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
 525
 526 <p><blockquote><pre>
 527 #! /bin/sh -e
 528 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 529 error() {
 530     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
 531 }
 532 remove_install_override() {
 533     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 534         file=/usr/bin/$bin
 535         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
 536             rm /target$file
 537             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 538                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
 539             rm /target$file.edu
 540         else
 541             error "Missing divert for $file."
 542         fi
 543     done
 544     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
 545 }
 546
 547 remove_install_override
 548 </pre></blockquote></p>
 549
 550 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
 551 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
 552 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
 553
 554 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
 555 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
 556 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
 557 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
 558 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
 559 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
 560 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
 561 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
 562 everyone.</p>
 563
 564 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
 565 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
 566 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711.  An updated
 567 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
 568
 569 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
 570 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
 571 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
 572 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
 573 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
 574
 575       </div>
 576       <div class="tags">
 577
 578
 579         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>.
 580
 581
 582       </div>
 583     </div>
 584     <div class="padding"></div>
 585
 586     <div class="entry">
 587       <div class="title">
 588         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
 589       </div>
 590       <div class="date">
 591         10th September 2014
 592       </div>
 593       <div class="body">
 594         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
 595 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
 596 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
 597 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
 598 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
 599 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
 600 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
 601 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
 602 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
 603 those problems are gone now.</p>
 604
 605 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
 606 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
 607 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
 608 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
 609 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
 610
 611 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
 612 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
 613 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
 614
 615 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
 616 line:</p>
 617
 618 <p><blockquote><pre>
 619 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
 620 </pre></blockquote></p>
 621
 622 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
 623 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
 624 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
 625 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
 626
 627 <p><blockquote><pre>
 628 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
 629 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
 630 %
 631 </pre></blockquote></p>
 632
 633 <p>Now if only
 634 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
 635 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
 636 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
 637 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
 638 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
 639 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
 640 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
 641 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
 642 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
 643
 644       </div>
 645       <div class="tags">
 646
 647
 648         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/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 649
 650
 651       </div>
 652     </div>
 653     <div class="padding"></div>
 654
 655     <div class="entry">
 656       <div class="title">
 657         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
 658       </div>
 659       <div class="date">
 660         17th June 2014
 661       </div>
 662       <div class="body">
 663         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 664 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
 665 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
 666 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
 667 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
 668
 669 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
 670 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
 671 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
 672 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
 673 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
 674 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
 675 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
 676 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
 677 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
 678 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
 679 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
 680 goals.</p>
 681
 682 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
 683 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
 684 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
 685 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
 686 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
 687 chapters together into one large web page (aka
 688 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
 689 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
 690 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
 691 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
 692 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
 693 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
 694 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
 695 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
 696 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
 697 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
 698 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
 699 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
 700 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
 701 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
 702 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
 703 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
 704 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
 705 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
 706
 707 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
 708 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
 709 track the English original.  For this we use the
 710 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
 711 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
 712 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
 713 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
 714 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
 715 files), which the translations update with the native language
 716 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
 717 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
 718 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
 719 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
 720 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
 721 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
 722 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
 723 of the documentation.</p>
 724
 725 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
 726 recommend using
 727 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
 728 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
 729 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
 730 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
 731 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
 732 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
 733 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
 734 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
 735
 736 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
 737 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
 738 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
 739 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
 740 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
 741 translated images by storing translated versions in
 742 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
 743 package maintainers know more.</p>
 744
 745 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
 746 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
 747 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
 748 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
 749 PDF version</a> or the
 750 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
 751 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
 752 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
 753
 754 <p>To learn more, check out
 755 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
 756 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
 757 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
 758 manual on the wiki</a> and
 759 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
 760 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
 761
 762       </div>
 763       <div class="tags">
 764
 765
 766         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/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 767
 768
 769       </div>
 770     </div>
 771     <div class="padding"></div>
 772
 773     <div class="entry">
 774       <div class="title">
 775         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
 776       </div>
 777       <div class="date">
 778         23rd April 2014
 779       </div>
 780       <div class="body">
 781         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
 782 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
 783 So I implemented one, using
 784 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
 785 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
 786 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
 787 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
 788 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
 789 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
 790
 791 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
 792 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
 793 packages to install.  The first part is in
 794 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
 795 this:</p>
 796
 797 <p><blockquote><pre>
 798 Task: isenkram
 799 Section: hardware
 800 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 801  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 802  proposed.
 803 Test-new-install: mark show
 804 Relevance: 8
 805 Packages: for-current-hardware
 806 </pre></blockquote></p>
 807
 808 <p>The second part is in
 809 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
 810 this:</p>
 811
 812 <p><blockquote><pre>
 813 #!/bin/sh
 814 #
 815 (
 816     isenkram-lookup
 817     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 818 ) | sort -u
 819 </pre></blockquote></p>
 820
 821 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
 822 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
 823 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
 824 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
 825 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
 826 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
 827
 828 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
 829 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
 830 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
 831 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
 832 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
 833 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
 834 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
 835 the python-apt code (bug
 836 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
 837 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
 838 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
 839 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
 840 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
 841 unstable today.</p>
 842
 843 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
 844 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
 845 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
 846 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
 847 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
 848 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
 849 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
 850 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
 851 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
 852
 853 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
 854 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
 855 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
 856 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
 857 package.  See also
 858 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
 859 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
 860 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
 861 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
 862
 863       </div>
 864       <div class="tags">
 865
 866
 867         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>.
 868
 869
 870       </div>
 871     </div>
 872     <div class="padding"></div>
 873
 874     <div class="entry">
 875       <div class="title">
 876         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
 877       </div>
 878       <div class="date">
 879         15th April 2014
 880       </div>
 881       <div class="body">
 882         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
 883 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
 884 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
 885 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
 886 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
 887 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
 888
 889 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
 890 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
 891 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
 892 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
 893 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
 894 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
 895 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
 896
 897 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
 898 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
 899 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
 900 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
 901 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
 902 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
 903 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
 904 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
 905 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
 906 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
 907 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
 908 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
 909
 910 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
 911 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
 912 become root:</p>
 913
 914 <p><pre>
 915 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
 916   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
 917   u-boot-tools
 918 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
 919   freedom-maker
 920 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
 921 </pre></p>
 922
 923 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
 924 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
 925 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
 926 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
 927 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
 928 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
 929 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
 930 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
 931
 932 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
 933 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
 934 the preseed values:</p>
 935
 936 <p><pre>
 937 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
 938 </pre></p>
 939
 940 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
 941 it still work.</p>
 942
 943 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
 944 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
 945 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
 946 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
 947 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
 948 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
 949 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
 950
 951 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
 952 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
 953 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
 954 irc.debian.org)</a> and
 955 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
 956 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
 957
 958       </div>
 959       <div class="tags">
 960
 961
 962         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>.
 963
 964
 965       </div>
 966     </div>
 967     <div class="padding"></div>
 968
 969     <div class="entry">
 970       <div class="title">
 971         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
 972       </div>
 973       <div class="date">
 974          9th April 2014
 975       </div>
 976       <div class="body">
 977         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
 978 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
 979 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
 980 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
 981 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
 982 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
 983 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
 984 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
 985 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
 986 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
 987 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
 988 have looked at a system called
 989 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
 990 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
 991
 992 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
 993 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
 994 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
 995 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
 996 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
 997 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
 998 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
 999 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
1000 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
1001 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
1002 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
1003 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
1004 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
1005
1006 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
1007 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
1008 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
1009 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
1010 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
1011 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
1012 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
1013 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
1014 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
1015 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
1016 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
1017 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
1018 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
1019 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
1020 account.</p>
1021
1022 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
1023 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
1024 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
1025 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
1026 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
1027 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
1028 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
1029
1030 <p><blockquote><pre>
1031 [s3c]
1032 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1033 backend-login: API-login
1034 backend-password: API-password
1035 fs-passphrase: local-password
1036 </pre></blockquote></p>
1037
1038 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
1039 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
1040 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
1041 details and password to create it:</p>
1042
1043 <p><blockquote><pre>
1044 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
1045 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1046   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1047 Enter backend login:
1048 Enter backend password:
1049 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
1050 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
1051 Enter encryption password:
1052 Confirm encryption password:
1053 Generating random encryption key...
1054 Creating metadata tables...
1055 Dumping metadata...
1056 ..objects..
1057 ..blocks..
1058 ..inodes..
1059 ..inode_blocks..
1060 ..symlink_targets..
1061 ..names..
1062 ..contents..
1063 ..ext_attributes..
1064 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1065 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
1066 # </pre></blockquote></p>
1067
1068 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
1069
1070 <p><blockquote><pre>
1071 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1072   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1073 Using 4 upload threads.
1074 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
1075 Reading metadata...
1076 ..objects..
1077 ..blocks..
1078 ..inodes..
1079 ..inode_blocks..
1080 ..symlink_targets..
1081 ..names..
1082 ..contents..
1083 ..ext_attributes..
1084 Mounting filesystem...
1085 # df -h /s3ql
1086 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
1087 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
1088 #
1089 </pre></blockquote></p>
1090
1091 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
1092 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
1093 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
1094 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
1095 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
1096 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
1097
1098 <p><blockquote><pre>
1099 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
1100 #
1101 </pre></blockquote></p>
1102
1103 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
1104 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
1105 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
1106 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
1107 file system:</p>
1108
1109 <p><blockquote><pre>
1110 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1111 Using cached metadata.
1112 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
1113 Checking DB integrity...
1114 Creating temporary extra indices...
1115 Checking lost+found...
1116 Checking cached objects...
1117 Checking names (refcounts)...
1118 Checking contents (names)...
1119 Checking contents (inodes)...
1120 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
1121 Checking objects (reference counts)...
1122 Checking objects (backend)...
1123 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
1124 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
1125 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
1126 Checking objects (sizes)...
1127 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
1128 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
1129 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
1130 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
1131 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
1132 Checking inodes (sizes)...
1133 Checking extended attributes (names)...
1134 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
1135 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
1136 Checking directory reachability...
1137 Checking unix conventions...
1138 Checking referential integrity...
1139 Dropping temporary indices...
1140 Backing up old metadata...
1141 Dumping metadata...
1142 ..objects..
1143 ..blocks..
1144 ..inodes..
1145 ..inode_blocks..
1146 ..symlink_targets..
1147 ..names..
1148 ..contents..
1149 ..ext_attributes..
1150 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1151 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
1152 #
1153 </pre></blockquote></p>
1154
1155 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
1156 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
1157 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1158 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
1159 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1160 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1161 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
1162 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
1163 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1164 working set.</p>
1165
1166 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
1167 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
1168 busy:</p>
1169
1170 <p><blockquote><pre>
1171 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1172   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1173 Using 8 upload threads.
1174 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
1175 #
1176 </pre></blockquote></p>
1177
1178 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
1179 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
1180 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
1181 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
1182 s3qlctrl:
1183
1184 <p><blockquote><pre>
1185 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
1186 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
1187 #
1188 </pre></blockquote></p>
1189
1190 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
1191 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
1192 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
1193 a report:</p>
1194
1195 <p><blockquote><pre>
1196 # s3qlstat /s3ql
1197 Directory entries:    9141
1198 Inodes:               9143
1199 Data blocks:          8851
1200 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
1201 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
1202 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
1203 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
1204 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
1205 #
1206 </pre></blockquote></p>
1207
1208 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
1209 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
1210 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
1211 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
1212 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
1213 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
1214 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
1215 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
1216 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
1217 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
1218 best.</p>
1219
1220 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
1221 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
1222 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
1223 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
1224 poster is titled
1225 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
1226 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
1227 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
1228 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
1229 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
1230
1231 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
1232 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
1233 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
1234 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
1235 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
1236 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
1237 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
1238 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
1239
1240 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
1241 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
1242 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
1243 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
1244 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
1245 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
1246 only read from it.</p>
1247
1248 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1249 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1250 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1251
1252       </div>
1253       <div class="tags">
1254
1255
1256         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/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
1257
1258
1259       </div>
1260     </div>
1261     <div class="padding"></div>
1262
1263     <div class="entry">
1264       <div class="title">
1265         <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>
1266       </div>
1267       <div class="date">
1268         14th March 2014
1269       </div>
1270       <div class="body">
1271         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1272 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
1273 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
1274 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
1275 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
1276 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
1277 release (0.2).</p>
1278
1279 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
1280 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
1281 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
1282 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
1283 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
1284 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
1285 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
1286 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
1287 and build using
1288 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
1289 with a user with sudo access to become root:
1290
1291 <pre>
1292 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1293   freedom-maker
1294 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1295   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1296   u-boot-tools
1297 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1298 </pre>
1299
1300 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1301 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1302 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
1303 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
1304 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
1305 kpartx call.</p>
1306
1307 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1308 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1309 the preseed values:</p>
1310
1311 <pre>
1312 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1313 </pre>
1314
1315 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
1316 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
1317 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
1318 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
1319 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
1320 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
1321
1322 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1323 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1324 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1325 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1326 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1327 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1328
1329       </div>
1330       <div class="tags">
1331
1332
1333         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>.
1334
1335
1336       </div>
1337     </div>
1338     <div class="padding"></div>
1339
1340     <div class="entry">
1341       <div class="title">
1342         <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>
1343       </div>
1344       <div class="date">
1345         22nd February 2014
1346       </div>
1347       <div class="body">
1348         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
1349 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
1350 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
1351 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
1352 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
1353 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
1354 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
1355 proper home since then.</p>
1356
1357 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
1358 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
1359 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
1360 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
1361 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
1362
1363 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
1364 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
1365 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
1366 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
1367 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
1368 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
1369 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
1370 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
1371 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
1372
1373       </div>
1374       <div class="tags">
1375
1376
1377         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>.
1378
1379
1380       </div>
1381     </div>
1382     <div class="padding"></div>
1383
1384     <div class="entry">
1385       <div class="title">
1386         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
1387       </div>
1388       <div class="date">
1389          3rd February 2014
1390       </div>
1391       <div class="body">
1392         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
1393 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
1394 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
1395 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
1396 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
1397 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
1398 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
1399 <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>,
1400 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
1401
1402 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
1403 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
1404 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
1405 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
1406 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
1407 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
1408
1409 <p><blockquote><pre>
1410 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
1411 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
1412 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
1413 dhclient /dev/eth0
1414 </pre></blockquote></p>
1415
1416 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
1417 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
1418 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
1419
1420 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
1421 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
1422 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
1423 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
1424 side.</p>
1425
1426 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
1427 stuff:</p>
1428
1429 <p><blockquote><pre>
1430 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1431 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
1432 EOF
1433 apt-get update
1434 apt-get dist-upgrade
1435 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
1436     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
1437 update-alternatives --config runsystem
1438 </pre></blockquote></p>
1439
1440 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
1441 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
1442 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
1443 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
1444 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
1445 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
1446 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
1447 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
1448 ssh instead.
1449
1450 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
1451 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
1452 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
1453 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
1454 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
1455 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
1456
1457 <p><blockquote><pre>
1458 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1459 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
1460 EOF
1461 </pre></blockquote></p>
1462
1463 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
1464 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
1465 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
1466 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
1467
1468 <p><blockquote><pre>
1469 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
1470 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
1471 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
1472 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
1473 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
1474 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
1475 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
1476 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
1477 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
1478 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
1479 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
1480 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
1481 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
1482 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
1483 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
1484 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
1485 #
1486 </pre></blockquote></p>
1487
1488 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
1489 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
1490 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
1491 command line stuff.<p>
1492
1493       </div>
1494       <div class="tags">
1495
1496
1497         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>.
1498
1499
1500       </div>
1501     </div>
1502     <div class="padding"></div>
1503
1504     <div class="entry">
1505       <div class="title">
1506         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
1507       </div>
1508       <div class="date">
1509         14th January 2014
1510       </div>
1511       <div class="body">
1512         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
1513 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
1514 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
1515 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
1516 the source.  The company behind it provide
1517 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
1518 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
1519 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
1520 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
1521 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
1522 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
1523 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
1524 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
1525 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
1526 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
1527 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
1528 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
1529 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
1530 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
1531 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
1532 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
1533 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
1534 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
1535 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
1536
1537 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
1538
1539 <ul>
1540
1541   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
1542   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
1543   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
1544
1545 </ul>
1546
1547 <p>You can
1548 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1549 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1550 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1551 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1552 include a test suite check.</p>
1553
1554       </div>
1555       <div class="tags">
1556
1557
1558         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>.
1559
1560
1561       </div>
1562     </div>
1563     <div class="padding"></div>
1564
1565     <div class="entry">
1566       <div class="title">
1567         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
1568       </div>
1569       <div class="date">
1570         24th November 2013
1571       </div>
1572       <div class="body">
1573         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
1574 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
1575 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
1576 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
1577 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
1578 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
1579 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
1580 is working on.  I checked the
1581 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
1582 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
1583 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
1584 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
1585 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
1586 These are the release notes:</p>
1587
1588 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
1589
1590 <ul>
1591
1592   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
1593    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
1594    up.</li>
1595
1596   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
1597
1598   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
1599    Matthias Klose.</li>
1600
1601   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
1602    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
1603
1604   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
1605    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
1606    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
1607
1608 </ul>
1609
1610 <p>You can
1611 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1612 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1613 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1614 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1615 include a testsuite check.</p>
1616
1617       </div>
1618       <div class="tags">
1619
1620
1621         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>.
1622
1623
1624       </div>
1625     </div>
1626     <div class="padding"></div>
1627
1628     <div class="entry">
1629       <div class="title">
1630         <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>
1631       </div>
1632       <div class="date">
1633          2nd November 2013
1634       </div>
1635       <div class="body">
1636         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
1637 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
1638 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
1639 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
1640 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
1641
1642 <p><pre>
1643 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
1644 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
1645 # Provides:          rsyslog
1646 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
1647 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
1648 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
1649 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
1650 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
1651 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
1652 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
1653 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
1654 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
1655 ### END INIT INFO
1656 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
1657 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
1658 </pre></p>
1659
1660 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
1661 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
1662 info/comments.</p>
1663
1664 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
1665 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
1666
1667 <p><pre>
1668 #!/bin/sh
1669
1670 # Define LSB log_* functions.
1671 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
1672 # and status_of_proc is working.
1673 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
1674
1675 #
1676 # Function that starts the daemon/service
1677
1678 #
1679 do_start()
1680 {
1681         # Return
1682         #   0 if daemon has been started
1683         #   1 if daemon was already running
1684         #   2 if daemon could not be started
1685         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
1686                 || return 1
1687         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
1688                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
1689                 || return 2
1690         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
1691         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
1692         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
1693 }
1694
1695 #
1696 # Function that stops the daemon/service
1697 #
1698 do_stop()
1699 {
1700         # Return
1701         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
1702         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
1703         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
1704         #   other if a failure occurred
1705         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1706         RETVAL="$?"
1707         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
1708         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
1709         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
1710         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
1711         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
1712         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
1713         # sleep for some time.
1714         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
1715         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
1716         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
1717         rm -f $PIDFILE
1718         return "$RETVAL"
1719 }
1720
1721 #
1722 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
1723 #
1724 do_reload() {
1725         #
1726         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
1727         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
1728         # then implement that here.
1729         #
1730         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1731         return 0
1732 }
1733
1734 SCRIPTNAME=$1
1735 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
1736 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
1737 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
1738     script="$1"
1739     shift
1740     . $script
1741 else
1742     exit 0
1743 fi
1744
1745 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
1746 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
1747
1748 # Exit if the package is not installed
1749 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
1750
1751 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
1752 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
1753
1754 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
1755 . /lib/init/vars.sh
1756
1757 case "$1" in
1758   start)
1759         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
1760         do_start
1761         case "$?" in
1762                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1763                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1764         esac
1765         ;;
1766   stop)
1767         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
1768         do_stop
1769         case "$?" in
1770                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1771                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1772         esac
1773         ;;
1774   status)
1775         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
1776         ;;
1777   #reload|force-reload)
1778         #
1779         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
1780         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
1781         #
1782         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
1783         #do_reload
1784         #log_end_msg $?
1785         #;;
1786   restart|force-reload)
1787         #
1788         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
1789         # 'force-reload' alias
1790         #
1791         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
1792         do_stop
1793         case "$?" in
1794           0|1)
1795                 do_start
1796                 case "$?" in
1797                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
1798                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
1799                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
1800                 esac
1801                 ;;
1802           *)
1803                 # Failed to stop
1804                 log_end_msg 1
1805                 ;;
1806         esac
1807         ;;
1808   *)
1809         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
1810         exit 3
1811         ;;
1812 esac
1813
1814 :
1815 </pre></p>
1816
1817 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
1818 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
1819 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
1820 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
1821
1822 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
1823 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
1824 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
1825 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
1826 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
1827
1828       </div>
1829       <div class="tags">
1830
1831
1832         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>.
1833
1834
1835       </div>
1836     </div>
1837     <div class="padding"></div>
1838
1839     <div class="entry">
1840       <div class="title">
1841         <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>
1842       </div>
1843       <div class="date">
1844          1st November 2013
1845       </div>
1846       <div class="body">
1847         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
1848 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
1849 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
1850 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
1851 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
1852 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
1853 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
1854 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
1855 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
1856 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
1857 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
1858 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
1859
1860 <p>The source is now available from
1861 <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>
1862
1863       </div>
1864       <div class="tags">
1865
1866
1867         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>.
1868
1869
1870       </div>
1871     </div>
1872     <div class="padding"></div>
1873
1874     <div class="entry">
1875       <div class="title">
1876         <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>
1877       </div>
1878       <div class="date">
1879         27th October 2013
1880       </div>
1881       <div class="body">
1882         <p>The
1883 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
1884 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
1885 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
1886 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
1887 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
1888 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
1889 of a plan to simplify the build system for
1890 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
1891 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
1892 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
1893 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
1894 Raspberry Pi.</p>
1895
1896 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
1897 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
1898 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
1899 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
1900 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
1901 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
1902 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
1903 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
1904 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
1905 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
1906 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
1907 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
1908 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
1909 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
1910 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
1911 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
1912 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
1913 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
1914 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
1915 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
1916 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
1917 available from
1918 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
1919 upstream project page</a>.</p>
1920
1921 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
1922 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
1923 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
1924 list:</p>
1925
1926 <p><pre>
1927 #!/bin/sh
1928 set -e # Exit on first error
1929 rootdir="$1"
1930 cd "$rootdir"
1931 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
1932 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
1933 EOF
1934 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
1935 # install a kernel somewhere too.
1936 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
1937     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1938 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1939 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
1940 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
1941 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
1942 </pre></p>
1943
1944 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
1945 to build the image:</p>
1946
1947 <pre>
1948 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
1949     --variant minbase \
1950     --arch armel \
1951     --distribution jessie \
1952     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
1953     --image test.img \
1954     --size 600M \
1955     --bootsize 64M \
1956     --boottype vfat \
1957     --log-level debug \
1958     --verbose \
1959     --no-kernel \
1960     --no-extlinux \
1961     --root-password raspberry \
1962     --hostname raspberrypi \
1963     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
1964     --customize `pwd`/customize \
1965     --package netbase \
1966     --package git-core \
1967     --package binutils \
1968     --package ca-certificates \
1969     --package wget \
1970     --package kmod
1971 </pre></p>
1972
1973 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
1974 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
1975 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
1976 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
1977 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
1978 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
1979 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
1980
1981 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
1982 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
1983 build dependency list.</p>
1984
1985 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
1986 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
1987 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
1988 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
1989
1990       </div>
1991       <div class="tags">
1992
1993
1994         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>.
1995
1996
1997       </div>
1998     </div>
1999     <div class="padding"></div>
2000
2001     <div class="entry">
2002       <div class="title">
2003         <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>
2004       </div>
2005       <div class="date">
2006         15th October 2013
2007       </div>
2008       <div class="body">
2009         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
2010 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
2011 these. :)</p>
2012
2013 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
2014 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
2015 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
2016 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
2017 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
2018 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
2019 hope you will to. :)</p>
2020
2021 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
2022 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
2023 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
2024 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
2025 donated.  Are you next?</p>
2026
2027 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
2028 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
2029 statement under the heading
2030 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
2031 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
2032 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
2033 too.</p>
2034
2035       </div>
2036       <div class="tags">
2037
2038
2039         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>.
2040
2041
2042       </div>
2043     </div>
2044     <div class="padding"></div>
2045
2046     <div class="entry">
2047       <div class="title">
2048         <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>
2049       </div>
2050       <div class="date">
2051         27th September 2013
2052       </div>
2053       <div class="body">
2054         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
2055 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
2056 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
2057 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
2058
2059 <ul>
2060
2061 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
2062 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
2063
2064 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
2065 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2066
2067 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
2068 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
2069 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
2070 (Youtube)</li>
2071
2072 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
2073 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
2074
2075 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
2076 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2077
2078 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
2079 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
2080 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
2081
2082 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
2083 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
2084 (Youtube)</li>
2085
2086 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
2087 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
2088
2089 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
2090 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
2091
2092 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
2093 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2094 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
2095
2096 </ul>
2097
2098 <p>A larger list is available from
2099 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
2100 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
2101
2102 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
2103 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
2104 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
2105 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
2106 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
2107 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
2108 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
2109 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
2110 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
2111 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2112 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2113
2114       </div>
2115       <div class="tags">
2116
2117
2118         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>.
2119
2120
2121       </div>
2122     </div>
2123     <div class="padding"></div>
2124
2125     <div class="entry">
2126       <div class="title">
2127         <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>
2128       </div>
2129       <div class="date">
2130         10th September 2013
2131       </div>
2132       <div class="body">
2133         <p>I was introduced to the
2134 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
2135 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2136 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2137 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
2138 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2139 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
2140 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2141 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
2142
2143 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2144 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2145 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
2146 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2147 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
2148
2149 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
2150 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2151 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2152 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2153 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
2154 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
2155 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
2156 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2157 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2158 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2159 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2160 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2161 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2162 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2163 missing in Debian).</p>
2164
2165 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2166 scripts
2167 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
2168 and a administrative web interface
2169 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
2170 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2171 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
2172 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2173 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
2174 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2175 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
2176 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2177 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
2178 this is really working yet, see
2179 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
2180 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
2181 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2182 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2183 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2184 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2185 with lots of half baked features.</p>
2186
2187 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2188 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2189 at.</p>
2190
2191 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
2192
2193 <ol>
2194
2195 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
2196 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
2197 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2198 to the Debian installer:<p>
2199 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
2200
2201 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2202 install on.</li>
2203
2204 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2205 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
2206
2207 </ol>
2208
2209 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
2210
2211 <ol>
2212
2213 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
2214 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
2215 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
2216 <pre>
2217 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
2218 </pre></li>
2219 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
2220 <pre>
2221 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2222    apt-key add -
2223 apt-get update
2224 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2225 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2226 </pre></li>
2227 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
2228
2229 </ol>
2230
2231 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2232 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2233 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2234 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
2235 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
2236
2237 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2238 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2239 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2240 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
2241
2242 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2243 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
2244 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
2245 irc.debian.org and the
2246 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
2247 mailing list</a>.</p>
2248
2249 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2250 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
2251 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2252 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
2253 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
2254 default password is 'secret'.</p>
2255
2256       </div>
2257       <div class="tags">
2258
2259
2260         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>.
2261
2262
2263       </div>
2264     </div>
2265     <div class="padding"></div>
2266
2267     <div class="entry">
2268       <div class="title">
2269         <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>
2270       </div>
2271       <div class="date">
2272         18th August 2013
2273       </div>
2274       <div class="body">
2275         <p>Earlier, I reported about
2276 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
2277 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
2278 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
2279 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2280 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2281 currently on the disk.</p>
2282
2283 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2284 <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>
2285 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2286 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2287 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2288 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
2289 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2290 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
2291 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2292 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
2293 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
2294 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2295 the broken disks.</p>
2296
2297       </div>
2298       <div class="tags">
2299
2300
2301         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>.
2302
2303
2304       </div>
2305     </div>
2306     <div class="padding"></div>
2307
2308     <div class="entry">
2309       <div class="title">
2310         <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>
2311       </div>
2312       <div class="date">
2313         17th July 2013
2314       </div>
2315       <div class="body">
2316         <p>Today I switched to
2317 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
2318 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
2319 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2320 <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
2321 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
2322 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2323 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2324 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2325 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
2326 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2327 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2328 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2329 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2330 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2331 station from now on.</p>
2332
2333 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2334 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2335 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
2336 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2337 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2338 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
2339 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
2340 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
2341 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2342 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2343 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2344 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
2345
2346 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2347 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
2348 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2349 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2350 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
2351 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
2352 parameters are tuned:</p>
2353
2354 <ul>
2355
2356 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2357     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
2358
2359 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2360     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2361     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
2362
2363 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2364     systems.</li>
2365
2366 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
2367     /etc/fstab.</li>
2368
2369 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
2370
2371 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2372     cron.daily).</li>
2373
2374 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2375     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
2376
2377 </ul>
2378
2379 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2380 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2381 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2382 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2383 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2384 from getting the data on the disk (see
2385 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
2386 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2387 right thing to do.</p>
2388
2389 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2390 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2391 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
2392
2393 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
2394 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2395 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2396 instead of during my work.</p>
2397
2398 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2399 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
2400
2401 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
2402 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2403 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
2404
2405 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2406 there.</p>
2407
2408 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2409 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2410 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2411 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2412 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2413 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2414 back.</p>
2415
2416       </div>
2417       <div class="tags">
2418
2419
2420         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>.
2421
2422
2423       </div>
2424     </div>
2425     <div class="padding"></div>
2426
2427     <div class="entry">
2428       <div class="title">
2429         <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>
2430       </div>
2431       <div class="date">
2432         10th July 2013
2433       </div>
2434       <div class="body">
2435         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
2436 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
2437 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
2438 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2439 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
2440 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
2441 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
2442 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
2443
2444 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2445 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
2446 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
2447 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2448 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2449 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
2450 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
2451 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
2452 lock up when I download a new
2453 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
2454 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2455 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
2456
2457 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2458 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
2459 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2460 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
2461 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2462 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2463
2464 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2465 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
2466 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2467 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
2468 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2469 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2470
2471 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
2472 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
2473 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
2474 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
2475 exist).</p>
2476
2477       </div>
2478       <div class="tags">
2479
2480
2481         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>.
2482
2483
2484       </div>
2485     </div>
2486     <div class="padding"></div>
2487
2488     <div class="entry">
2489       <div class="title">
2490         <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>
2491       </div>
2492       <div class="date">
2493          9th July 2013
2494       </div>
2495       <div class="body">
2496         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
2497 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
2498 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
2499 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
2500 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2501 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
2502 Bitraf</a>.</p>
2503
2504 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
2505 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
2506 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
2507 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
2508 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
2509
2510       </div>
2511       <div class="tags">
2512
2513
2514         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>.
2515
2516
2517       </div>
2518     </div>
2519     <div class="padding"></div>
2520
2521     <div class="entry">
2522       <div class="title">
2523         <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>
2524       </div>
2525       <div class="date">
2526          5th July 2013
2527       </div>
2528       <div class="body">
2529         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
2530 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
2531 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
2532 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
2533 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
2534 ended up picking a
2535 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
2536 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
2537 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
2538 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
2539 on that below.</p>
2540
2541 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2542 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2543 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2544 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2545 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2546 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
2547 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
2548 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
2549 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
2550
2551 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
2552 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
2553 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
2554 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
2555 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
2556 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
2557 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
2558
2559 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
2560 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
2561
2562 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
2563 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
2564 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
2565 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
2566 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
2567 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
2568 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
2569 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
2570 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
2571 kernel developers as
2572 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
2573 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
2574 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
2575 Lenovo forums, both for
2576 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
2577 2012-11-10</a> and for
2578 <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
2579 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
2580 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
2581 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
2582 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
2583 There is even a
2584 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
2585 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
2586 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
2587
2588 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
2589 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
2590 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
2591 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
2592 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
2593 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
2594 fixed. :)</p>
2595
2596       </div>
2597       <div class="tags">
2598
2599
2600         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>.
2601
2602
2603       </div>
2604     </div>
2605     <div class="padding"></div>
2606
2607     <div class="entry">
2608       <div class="title">
2609         <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>
2610       </div>
2611       <div class="date">
2612          4th July 2013
2613       </div>
2614       <div class="body">
2615         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
2616 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
2617 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
2618 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
2619 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
2620 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
2621 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
2622 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
2623 with an expencive door stop.</p>
2624
2625 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2626 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2627 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2628 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2629 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2630 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
2631 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
2632
2633 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
2634 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
2635 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
2636 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
2637 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
2638 new laptop now. :)</p>
2639
2640 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
2641
2642       </div>
2643       <div class="tags">
2644
2645
2646         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>.
2647
2648
2649       </div>
2650     </div>
2651     <div class="padding"></div>
2652
2653     <div class="entry">
2654       <div class="title">
2655         <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>
2656       </div>
2657       <div class="date">
2658         25th June 2013
2659       </div>
2660       <div class="body">
2661         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
2662 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
2663 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
2664 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
2665 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
2666 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
2667 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
2668 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
2669 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
2670 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
2671 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
2672
2673 <p><pre>
2674 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2675 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
2676 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
2677 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
2678 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
2679 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
2680 firmware-ipw2x00
2681 firmware-ipw2x00
2682 Preconfiguring packages ...
2683 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
2684 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
2685 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
2686 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
2687 #
2688 </pre></p>
2689
2690 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
2691 printed instead:</p>
2692
2693 <p><pre>
2694 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2695 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
2696 #
2697 </pre></p>
2698
2699 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
2700 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
2701
2702 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
2703 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
2704 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
2705 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
2706 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
2707 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
2708 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
2709 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
2710 machine.</p>
2711
2712 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
2713 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
2714 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
2715 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
2716 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
2717 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
2718
2719       </div>
2720       <div class="tags">
2721
2722
2723         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>.
2724
2725
2726       </div>
2727     </div>
2728     <div class="padding"></div>
2729
2730     <div class="entry">
2731       <div class="title">
2732         <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>
2733       </div>
2734       <div class="date">
2735         11th June 2013
2736       </div>
2737       <div class="body">
2738         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
2739 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
2740 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
2741 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
2742 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
2743 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
2744 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
2745 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
2746 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
2747 i915 driver used by the
2748 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
2749 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
2750
2751 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
2752 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
2753 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
2754 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
2755 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
2756
2757 <pre>
2758 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
2759 update-initramfs -u -k all
2760 </pre>
2761
2762 <p>Since March 2012 there is
2763 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
2764 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
2765 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
2766 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
2767 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
2768 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
2769 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
2770 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
2771 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
2772 number.</p>
2773
2774 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
2775 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
2776
2777 <p><pre>
2778 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
2779     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
2780     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
2781  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
2782  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
2783     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
2784  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
2785     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
2786  Latency: 0
2787  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
2788  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
2789  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
2790  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
2791  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
2792  Capabilities: <access denied>
2793  Kernel driver in use: i915
2794 </pre></p>
2795
2796 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
2797
2798 <p><pre>
2799 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
2800        ...
2801         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
2802         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
2803        ...
2804 }
2805 </pre></p>
2806
2807 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
2808 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
2809 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
2810 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
2811 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
2812 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
2813 yet shown up in
2814 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
2815 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
2816 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
2817 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
2818 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
2819 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
2820
2821 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
2822 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
2823 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
2824 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
2825 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
2826 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
2827 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
2828 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
2829 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
2830 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
2831 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
2832 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
2833
2834 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
2835 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
2836 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
2837 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
2838 backlight.</p>
2839
2840       </div>
2841       <div class="tags">
2842
2843
2844         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>.
2845
2846
2847       </div>
2848     </div>
2849     <div class="padding"></div>
2850
2851     <div class="entry">
2852       <div class="title">
2853         <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>
2854       </div>
2855       <div class="date">
2856         27th May 2013
2857       </div>
2858       <div class="body">
2859         <p>Two days ago, I asked
2860 <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
2861 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
2862 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
2863 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
2864 and Windows 8.</p>
2865
2866 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
2867 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
2868 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
2869 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
2870 enough to tell.</p>
2871
2872 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
2873 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
2874 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
2875 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
2876 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
2877 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
2878 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
2879 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
2880 to follow.</p>
2881
2882 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
2883 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
2884 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
2885 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
2886 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
2887 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
2888 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
2889 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
2890
2891 <p>I've updated the
2892 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
2893 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
2894 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
2895 machine.</p>
2896
2897 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
2898 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
2899
2900       </div>
2901       <div class="tags">
2902
2903
2904         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>.
2905
2906
2907       </div>
2908     </div>
2909     <div class="padding"></div>
2910
2911     <div class="entry">
2912       <div class="title">
2913         <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>
2914       </div>
2915       <div class="date">
2916         25th May 2013
2917       </div>
2918       <div class="body">
2919         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
2920 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
2921 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
2922 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
2923 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
2924 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
2925
2926 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
2927 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
2928 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
2929 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
2930 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
2931 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
2932 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
2933 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
2934 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
2935 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
2936
2937 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
2938 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
2939 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
2940 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
2941 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
2942 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
2943
2944 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
2945 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
2946 on new Laptops?</p>
2947
2948       </div>
2949       <div class="tags">
2950
2951
2952         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>.
2953
2954
2955       </div>
2956     </div>
2957     <div class="padding"></div>
2958
2959     <div class="entry">
2960       <div class="title">
2961         <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>
2962       </div>
2963       <div class="date">
2964         17th May 2013
2965       </div>
2966       <div class="body">
2967         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
2968 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
2969 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
2970 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
2971 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
2972 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
2973 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
2974 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
2975 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
2976 donate some money</a>.
2977
2978 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
2979 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
2980 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
2981 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
2982 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
2983
2984 <p>The script,
2985 <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/>
2986 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
2987 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
2988 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
2989
2990 <ol>
2991
2992 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
2993 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
2994 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
2995     our configuration.</li>
2996 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
2997     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
2998     according to the profile specified in the config above,
2999     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
3000 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
3001     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
3002 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
3003
3004 </ol>
3005
3006 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
3007 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
3008 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
3009 the needed packages.</p>
3010
3011 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
3012 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
3013 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
3014 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
3015 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
3016 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
3017
3018 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
3019 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
3020 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
3021
3022 <p><pre>
3023 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
3024 DESKTOP="lxde"
3025 </pre></p>
3026
3027 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
3028 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
3029 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
3030 boot.</p>
3031
3032       </div>
3033       <div class="tags">
3034
3035
3036         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>.
3037
3038
3039       </div>
3040     </div>
3041     <div class="padding"></div>
3042
3043     <div class="entry">
3044       <div class="title">
3045         <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>
3046       </div>
3047       <div class="date">
3048         11th May 2013
3049       </div>
3050       <div class="body">
3051         <P>In January,
3052 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
3053 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
3054 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
3055 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
3056 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
3057 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
3058 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
3059 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
3060 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
3061 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
3062 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
3063 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
3064
3065 <p><table>
3066 <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>
3067 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
3068 <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>
3069 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
3070 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
3071 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
3072 <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>
3073 <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>
3074 <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>
3075 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
3076 </table></p>
3077
3078 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
3079 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
3080 available in experimental.</p>
3081
3082 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
3083 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
3084 for LEGO designers.</p>
3085
3086       </div>
3087       <div class="tags">
3088
3089
3090         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>.
3091
3092
3093       </div>
3094     </div>
3095     <div class="padding"></div>
3096
3097     <div class="entry">
3098       <div class="title">
3099         <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>
3100       </div>
3101       <div class="date">
3102          5th May 2013
3103       </div>
3104       <div class="body">
3105         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
3106 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
3107 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
3108 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
3109 soon.</p>
3110
3111 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
3112 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
3113 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
3114 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
3115 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
3116 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
3117 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
3118 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
3119 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
3120 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
3121 Edu.</a>
3122
3123 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
3124 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
3125 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
3126 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
3127 follow.<p>
3128
3129       </div>
3130       <div class="tags">
3131
3132
3133         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>.
3134
3135
3136       </div>
3137     </div>
3138     <div class="padding"></div>
3139
3140     <div class="entry">
3141       <div class="title">
3142         <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>
3143       </div>
3144       <div class="date">
3145          3rd April 2013
3146       </div>
3147       <div class="body">
3148         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
3149 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
3150 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
3151 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
3152
3153 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
3154 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
3155 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
3156 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
3157 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
3158 BTS. :)</p>
3159
3160       </div>
3161       <div class="tags">
3162
3163
3164         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>.
3165
3166
3167       </div>
3168     </div>
3169     <div class="padding"></div>
3170
3171     <div class="entry">
3172       <div class="title">
3173         <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>
3174       </div>
3175       <div class="date">
3176          2nd February 2013
3177       </div>
3178       <div class="body">
3179         <p>My
3180 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
3181 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
3182 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
3183 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
3184 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
3185 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
3186 version too.</p>
3187
3188 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
3189 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
3190 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
3191 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
3192 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
3193 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
3194 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
3195 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
3196
3197 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
3198 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
3199 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
3200 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
3201 it. :)</p>
3202
3203 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3204 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3205 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3206
3207       </div>
3208       <div class="tags">
3209
3210
3211         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>.
3212
3213
3214       </div>
3215     </div>
3216     <div class="padding"></div>
3217
3218     <div class="entry">
3219       <div class="title">
3220         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
3221       </div>
3222       <div class="date">
3223         22nd January 2013
3224       </div>
3225       <div class="body">
3226         <p>Yesterday, I
3227 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
3228 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
3229 pluggable hardware devices, which I
3230 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
3231 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
3232 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
3233 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
3234 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
3235 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
3236 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
3237 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
3238 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
3239 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
3240
3241 <pre>
3242 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
3243 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
3244 </pre>
3245
3246 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
3247 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
3248 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
3249 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
3250
3251 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
3252 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
3253 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
3254 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
3255 word.</p>
3256
3257 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
3258 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
3259 process.</p>
3260
3261 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
3262 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
3263
3264       </div>
3265       <div class="tags">
3266
3267
3268         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>.
3269
3270
3271       </div>
3272     </div>
3273     <div class="padding"></div>
3274
3275     <div class="entry">
3276       <div class="title">
3277         <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>
3278       </div>
3279       <div class="date">
3280         21st January 2013
3281       </div>
3282       <div class="body">
3283         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
3284 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
3285 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
3286 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
3287 it, fetch the
3288 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
3289 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
3290 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
3291 autostart script.</p>
3292
3293 <p>The design is simple:</p>
3294
3295 <ul>
3296
3297 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
3298 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
3299
3300 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3301 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3302 initially did.</li>
3303
3304 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3305 the APT database, a database
3306 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
3307 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
3308
3309 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3310 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3311 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3312 package or packages.</li>
3313
3314 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
3315 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
3316
3317 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3318 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
3319
3320 </ul>
3321
3322 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
3323 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
3324 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3325 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
3326
3327 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
3328 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
3329 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
3330 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
3331 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
3332
3333 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3334 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
3335 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3336 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3337 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3338 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3339 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3340 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
3341
3342 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
3343 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3344 '<tt>svn checkout
3345 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3346 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
3347 devscripts package.</p>
3348
3349 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
3350 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3351 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
3352 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
3353 instructions</a> for details.</p>
3354
3355       </div>
3356       <div class="tags">
3357
3358
3359         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>.
3360
3361
3362       </div>
3363     </div>
3364     <div class="padding"></div>
3365
3366     <div class="entry">
3367       <div class="title">
3368         <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>
3369       </div>
3370       <div class="date">
3371         19th January 2013
3372       </div>
3373       <div class="body">
3374         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
3375 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
3376 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
3377 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
3378 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
3379 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
3380 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
3381 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
3382 not a durable solution.
3383
3384 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
3385 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
3386
3387 <ul>
3388
3389 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
3390   than A4).</li>
3391 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
3392 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
3393 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
3394 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
3395 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
3396 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
3397 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
3398 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
3399 size).</li>
3400 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
3401   X.org packages.</li>
3402 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
3403   the time).
3404
3405 </ul>
3406
3407 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
3408 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
3409 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
3410 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
3411 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
3412 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
3413 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
3414 still be useful.</p>
3415
3416 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
3417 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
3418 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
3419 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
3420 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
3421 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
3422
3423       </div>
3424       <div class="tags">
3425
3426
3427         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>.
3428
3429
3430       </div>
3431     </div>
3432     <div class="padding"></div>
3433
3434     <div class="entry">
3435       <div class="title">
3436         <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>
3437       </div>
3438       <div class="date">
3439         18th January 2013
3440       </div>
3441       <div class="body">
3442         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
3443 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
3444 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
3445 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
3446 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
3447 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
3448 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
3449
3450 <pre>
3451 #!/usr/bin/python
3452 import sys
3453 import apt
3454 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3455     cache = apt.Cache()
3456     cache.open(None)
3457     thepkgs = []
3458     for pkg in cache:
3459         version = pkg.candidate
3460         if version is None:
3461             version = pkg.installed
3462         if version is None:
3463             continue
3464         record = version.record
3465         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
3466             continue
3467         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
3468         for t in mime_types:
3469             t = t.rstrip().strip()
3470             if t == mimetype:
3471                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
3472     return thepkgs
3473 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
3474 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
3475     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
3476 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
3477 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3478     print "  %s" %pkg
3479 </pre>
3480
3481 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
3482
3483 <pre>
3484 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
3485 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
3486   gecko-mediaplayer
3487 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
3488 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
3489   browser-plugin-gnash
3490 %
3491 </pre>
3492
3493 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
3494 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
3495 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
3496 anyone working on adding it?</p>
3497
3498 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
3499 request for icweasel support for this feature is
3500 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
3501 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
3502 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
3503 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
3504
3505       </div>
3506       <div class="tags">
3507
3508
3509         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>.
3510
3511
3512       </div>
3513     </div>
3514     <div class="padding"></div>
3515
3516     <div class="entry">
3517       <div class="title">
3518         <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>
3519       </div>
3520       <div class="date">
3521         16th January 2013
3522       </div>
3523       <div class="body">
3524         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
3525 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
3526 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
3527 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
3528 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
3529 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
3530 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
3531 downloaded by the browser.</p>
3532
3533 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
3534 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
3535 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
3536 can be found on the
3537 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
3538 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
3539 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
3540 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
3541 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
3542
3543 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
3544
3545 <pre>
3546   count MIME type
3547   ----- -----------------------
3548      32 text/plain
3549      30 audio/mpeg
3550      29 image/png
3551      28 image/jpeg
3552      27 application/ogg
3553      26 audio/x-mp3
3554      25 image/tiff
3555      25 image/gif
3556      22 image/bmp
3557      22 audio/x-wav
3558      20 audio/x-flac
3559      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3560      18 video/x-ms-asf
3561      18 audio/x-musepack
3562      18 audio/x-mpeg
3563      18 application/x-ogg
3564      17 video/mpeg
3565      17 audio/x-scpls
3566      17 audio/ogg
3567      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3568 </pre>
3569
3570 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
3571
3572 <pre>
3573   count MIME type
3574   ----- -----------------------
3575      33 text/plain
3576      32 image/png
3577      32 image/jpeg
3578      29 audio/mpeg
3579      27 image/gif
3580      26 image/tiff
3581      26 application/ogg
3582      25 audio/x-mp3
3583      22 image/bmp
3584      21 audio/x-wav
3585      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3586      19 audio/x-mpeg
3587      18 video/mpeg
3588      18 audio/x-scpls
3589      18 audio/x-flac
3590      18 application/x-ogg
3591      17 video/x-ms-asf
3592      17 text/html
3593      17 audio/x-musepack
3594      16 image/x-xbitmap
3595 </pre>
3596
3597 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
3598
3599 <pre>
3600   count MIME type
3601   ----- -----------------------
3602      31 text/plain
3603      31 image/png
3604      31 image/jpeg
3605      29 audio/mpeg
3606      28 application/ogg
3607      27 image/gif
3608      26 image/tiff
3609      26 audio/x-mp3
3610      23 audio/x-wav
3611      22 image/bmp
3612      21 audio/x-flac
3613      20 audio/x-mpegurl
3614      19 audio/x-mpeg
3615      18 video/x-ms-asf
3616      18 video/mpeg
3617      18 audio/x-scpls
3618      18 application/x-ogg
3619      17 audio/x-musepack
3620      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3621      16 video/x-msvideo
3622 </pre>
3623
3624 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
3625 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
3626 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
3627 issues.</p>
3628
3629 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
3630 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
3631
3632       </div>
3633       <div class="tags">
3634
3635
3636         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>.
3637
3638
3639       </div>
3640     </div>
3641     <div class="padding"></div>
3642
3643     <div class="entry">
3644       <div class="title">
3645         <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>
3646       </div>
3647       <div class="date">
3648         15th January 2013
3649       </div>
3650       <div class="body">
3651         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
3652 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
3653 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
3654 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
3655 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
3656 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
3657 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
3658 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
3659 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
3660 packages.</p>
3661
3662 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
3663 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
3664 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
3665 modalias.</p>
3666
3667 <p><blockquote>
3668 Package: package-name
3669 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
3670 </blockquote></p>
3671
3672 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
3673 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
3674
3675 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
3676 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
3677
3678 <p><blockquote>
3679 Package: cheese
3680 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
3681 </blockquote></p>
3682
3683 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
3684 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
3685
3686 <p><blockquote>
3687 Package: pcmciautils
3688 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
3689 </blockquote></p>
3690
3691 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
3692 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
3693
3694 <p><blockquote>
3695 Package: colorhug-client
3696 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
3697 </blockquote></p>
3698
3699 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
3700 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
3701 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
3702
3703 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
3704 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
3705 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
3706 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
3707 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
3708 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
3709 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
3710 Raring.</p>
3711
3712 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
3713 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
3714 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
3715 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
3716 try the
3717 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
3718 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
3719 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
3720 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
3721
3722 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
3723 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
3724
3725 <p><blockquote>
3726 % ./hw-support-lookup
3727 <br>yubikey-personalization
3728 <br>%
3729 </blockquote></p>
3730
3731 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
3732 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
3733
3734 <p><blockquote>
3735 % ./hw-support-lookup
3736 <br>pcmciautils
3737 <br>%
3738 </blockquote></p>
3739
3740 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
3741 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
3742 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
3743
3744 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
3745 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
3746 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
3747 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
3748 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
3749 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
3750 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
3751 see if it work.</p>
3752
3753 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
3754 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
3755 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
3756 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
3757
3758       </div>
3759       <div class="tags">
3760
3761
3762         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>.
3763
3764
3765       </div>
3766     </div>
3767     <div class="padding"></div>
3768
3769     <div class="entry">
3770       <div class="title">
3771         <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>
3772       </div>
3773       <div class="date">
3774         14th January 2013
3775       </div>
3776       <div class="body">
3777         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
3778 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
3779 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
3780 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
3781 in
3782 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
3783 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
3784
3785 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
3786
3787 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
3788 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
3789 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
3790 &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;,
3791 &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
3792 &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;.
3793
3794 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
3795 this shell script:</p>
3796
3797 <pre>
3798 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
3799 </pre>
3800
3801 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
3802 using modinfo:</p>
3803
3804 <pre>
3805 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
3806 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
3807 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
3808 %
3809 </pre>
3810
3811 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
3812
3813 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
3814 Bridge memory controller:</p>
3815
3816 <p><blockquote>
3817 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
3818 </blockquote></p>
3819
3820 <p>This represent these values:</p>
3821
3822 <pre>
3823  v   00008086  (vendor)
3824  d   00002770  (device)
3825  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
3826  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
3827  bc  06        (bus class)
3828  sc  00        (bus subclass)
3829  i   00        (interface)
3830 </pre>
3831
3832 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
3833 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
3834 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
3835 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
3836
3837 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
3838 means.</p>
3839
3840 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
3841
3842 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
3843 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
3844
3845 <p><blockquote>
3846 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
3847 </blockquote></p>
3848
3849 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
3850
3851 <pre>
3852  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
3853  p    0001  (device product)
3854  d    0206  (bcddevice)
3855  dc     09  (device class)
3856  dsc    00  (device subclass)
3857  dp     00  (device protocol)
3858  ic     09  (interface class)
3859  isc    00  (interface subclass)
3860  ip     00  (interface protocol)
3861 </pre>
3862
3863 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
3864 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
3865 these alias entries show up:</p>
3866
3867 <p><blockquote>
3868 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
3869 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
3870 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
3871 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
3872 </blockquote></p>
3873
3874 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
3875 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
3876 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
3877
3878 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
3879
3880 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
3881 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
3882
3883 <p><blockquote>
3884 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
3885 </blockquote></p>
3886
3887 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
3888
3889 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
3890
3891 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
3892 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
3893 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
3894
3895 <p><blockquote>
3896 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
3897 </blockquote></p>
3898
3899 <p>The values present are</p>
3900
3901 <pre>
3902  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
3903  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
3904  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
3905  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
3906  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
3907  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
3908  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
3909  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
3910  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
3911  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
3912  ct   10             (chassis type)
3913  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
3914 </pre>
3915
3916 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
3917 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
3918
3919 <pre>
3920   3 Desktop
3921   4 Low Profile Desktop
3922   5 Pizza Box
3923   6 Mini Tower
3924   7 Tower
3925   8 Portable
3926   9 Laptop
3927  10 Notebook
3928  11 Hand Held
3929  12 Docking Station
3930  13 All In One
3931  14 Sub Notebook
3932  15 Space-saving
3933  16 Lunch Box
3934  17 Main Server Chassis
3935  18 Expansion Chassis
3936  19 Sub Chassis
3937  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
3938  21 Peripheral Chassis
3939  22 RAID Chassis
3940  23 Rack Mount Chassis
3941  24 Sealed-case PC
3942  25 Multi-system
3943  26 CompactPCI
3944  27 AdvancedTCA
3945  28 Blade
3946  29 Blade Enclosing
3947 </pre>
3948
3949 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
3950 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
3951 claim it is a desktop.</p>
3952
3953 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
3954
3955 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
3956 test machine:</p>
3957
3958 <p><blockquote>
3959 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
3960 </blockquote></p>
3961
3962 <p>The values present are</p>
3963
3964 <pre>
3965   ty  01  (type)
3966   pr  00  (prototype)
3967   id  00  (id)
3968   ex  00  (extra)
3969 </pre>
3970
3971 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
3972 the valid values are.</p>
3973
3974 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
3975
3976 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
3977 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
3978 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
3979 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
3980 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
3981 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
3982 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
3983
3984 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
3985
3986 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
3987 one can use the following shell script:</p>
3988
3989 <pre>
3990   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
3991     echo "$id" ; \
3992     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
3993   done
3994 </pre>
3995
3996 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
3997 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
3998
3999 <pre>
4000   acpi:ACPI0003:
4001     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
4002   acpi:device:
4003   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
4004   acpi:IBM0068:
4005     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
4006     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
4007     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
4008     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
4009   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4010     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
4011     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
4012     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
4013   [...]
4014 </pre>
4015
4016 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4017 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4018 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4019 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4020
4021 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
4022 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
4023 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
4024
4025       </div>
4026       <div class="tags">
4027
4028
4029         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>.
4030
4031
4032       </div>
4033     </div>
4034     <div class="padding"></div>
4035
4036     <div class="entry">
4037       <div class="title">
4038         <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>
4039       </div>
4040       <div class="date">
4041         10th January 2013
4042       </div>
4043       <div class="body">
4044         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
4045 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
4046 Launcher and updated the Debian package
4047 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
4048 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
4049 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
4050 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
4051 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
4052 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
4053 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
4054 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
4055 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
4056 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
4057 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
4058 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
4059 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
4060 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
4061 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
4062
4063       </div>
4064       <div class="tags">
4065
4066
4067         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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4068
4069
4070       </div>
4071     </div>
4072     <div class="padding"></div>
4073
4074     <div class="entry">
4075       <div class="title">
4076         <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>
4077       </div>
4078       <div class="date">
4079          9th January 2013
4080       </div>
4081       <div class="body">
4082         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
4083 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
4084 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
4085 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
4086 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
4087 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
4088 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
4089 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
4090 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
4091 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
4092 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
4093
4094 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
4095 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
4096 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
4097 simple:
4098
4099 <ul>
4100
4101 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
4102   starting when a user log in.</li>
4103
4104 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
4105   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
4106
4107 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
4108   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
4109   packages.</li>
4110
4111 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
4112   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
4113
4114 </ul>
4115
4116 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
4117 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
4118 discover database to find packages and
4119 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
4120 packages.</p>
4121
4122 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
4123 draft package is now checked into
4124 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4125 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
4126 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
4127 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
4128 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
4129 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
4130 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
4131 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
4132 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
4133 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
4134 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
4135 because of the freeze).</p>
4136
4137 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
4138 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
4139 inserted):</p>
4140
4141 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
4142
4143 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
4144 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
4145 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
4146
4147 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
4148 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
4149 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
4150 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
4151 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
4152 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
4153 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
4154
4155 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
4156 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
4157 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
4158 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
4159 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
4160 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
4161 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
4162 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
4163 not be installed?</p>
4164
4165 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
4166 please send me an email. :)</p>
4167
4168       </div>
4169       <div class="tags">
4170
4171
4172         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>.
4173
4174
4175       </div>
4176     </div>
4177     <div class="padding"></div>
4178
4179     <div class="entry">
4180       <div class="title">
4181         <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>
4182       </div>
4183       <div class="date">
4184          2nd January 2013
4185       </div>
4186       <div class="body">
4187         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
4188 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
4189 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
4190 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
4191 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
4192 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
4193 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
4194 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
4195 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
4196 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
4197
4198 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
4199 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
4200 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
4201
4202       </div>
4203       <div class="tags">
4204
4205
4206         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>.
4207
4208
4209       </div>
4210     </div>
4211     <div class="padding"></div>
4212
4213     <div class="entry">
4214       <div class="title">
4215         <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>
4216       </div>
4217       <div class="date">
4218         25th December 2012
4219       </div>
4220       <div class="body">
4221         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
4222 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
4223
4224 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
4225 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
4226 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
4227 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
4228 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
4229 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
4230 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
4231 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
4232 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
4233 name.</p>
4234
4235 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
4236 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
4237 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
4238
4239 <blockquote><pre>
4240 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
4241 cd bitcoin
4242 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
4243 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
4244 </pre></blockquote>
4245
4246 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
4247 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
4248 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
4249 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
4250 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
4251 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
4252 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
4253 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
4254 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
4255
4256 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4257 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4258 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4259
4260       </div>
4261       <div class="tags">
4262
4263
4264         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>.
4265
4266
4267       </div>
4268     </div>
4269     <div class="padding"></div>
4270
4271     <div class="entry">
4272       <div class="title">
4273         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
4274       </div>
4275       <div class="date">
4276         21st December 2012
4277       </div>
4278       <div class="body">
4279         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
4280 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
4281 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
4282 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
4283 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
4284 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
4285 is now maintained by a
4286 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
4287 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
4288 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
4289 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
4290 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
4291 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
4292 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
4293 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
4294 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
4295 Corallo in a
4296 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
4297 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
4298 Debian package.</p>
4299
4300 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
4301 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
4302 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
4303 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
4304 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
4305 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
4306 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
4307 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
4308 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
4309 new version to unstable.
4310
4311 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
4312 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
4313 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
4314 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
4315 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
4316 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
4317 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
4318 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
4319 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
4320 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
4321 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
4322 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
4323 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
4324 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
4325 have not tested them.</p>
4326
4327 <p>My
4328 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
4329 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
4330 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
4331 years ago, as can be
4332 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
4333 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
4334 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
4335 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
4336 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
4337 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
4338 the same address as last time,
4339 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4340
4341       </div>
4342       <div class="tags">
4343
4344
4345         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>.
4346
4347
4348       </div>
4349     </div>
4350     <div class="padding"></div>
4351
4352     <div class="entry">
4353       <div class="title">
4354         <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>
4355       </div>
4356       <div class="date">
4357          7th September 2012
4358       </div>
4359       <div class="body">
4360         <p>As I
4361 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
4362 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
4363 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
4364 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
4365 repository for the project</a>.</p>
4366
4367 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
4368 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
4369 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
4370 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
4371
4372 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
4373 PostScript formats at
4374 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
4375 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
4376
4377       </div>
4378       <div class="tags">
4379
4380
4381         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>.
4382
4383
4384       </div>
4385     </div>
4386     <div class="padding"></div>
4387
4388     <div class="entry">
4389       <div class="title">
4390         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
4391       </div>
4392       <div class="date">
4393         16th August 2012
4394       </div>
4395       <div class="body">
4396         <p>I dag fyller
4397 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
4398 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
4399 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
4400
4401       </div>
4402       <div class="tags">
4403
4404
4405         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>.
4406
4407
4408       </div>
4409     </div>
4410     <div class="padding"></div>
4411
4412     <div class="entry">
4413       <div class="title">
4414         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
4415       </div>
4416       <div class="date">
4417         24th June 2012
4418       </div>
4419       <div class="body">
4420         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
4421 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
4422 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
4423 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
4424 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
4425 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
4426 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
4427 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
4428 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
4429 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
4430 missing in my book.</p>
4431
4432 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
4433 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
4434 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
4435 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
4436 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
4437 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
4438 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
4439
4440       </div>
4441       <div class="tags">
4442
4443
4444         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>.
4445
4446
4447       </div>
4448     </div>
4449     <div class="padding"></div>
4450
4451     <div class="entry">
4452       <div class="title">
4453         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
4454       </div>
4455       <div class="date">
4456         21st November 2011
4457       </div>
4458       <div class="body">
4459         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
4460 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
4461 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
4462 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
4463 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
4464 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
4465 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
4466 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
4467 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
4468 the tools to do so.</p>
4469
4470 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
4471 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
4472 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
4473 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
4474
4475 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
4476 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
4477 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
4478 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
4479 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
4480 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
4481 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
4482 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
4483
4484 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
4485 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
4486 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
4487
4488 <p><pre>
4489 #!/usr/bin/perl
4490 use strict;
4491 use warnings;
4492 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
4493 BEGIN {
4494     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
4495     my %rhelmodules = (
4496         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
4497         );
4498     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
4499         eval "use $module;";
4500         if ($@) {
4501             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
4502             system("yum install -y $pkg");
4503             eval "use $module;";
4504         }
4505     }
4506 }
4507 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
4508
4509 upgrade_dell();
4510
4511 exit 0;
4512
4513 sub run_firmware_script {
4514     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
4515     unless ($script) {
4516         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
4517         exit 1
4518     }
4519     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
4520
4521     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
4522         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
4523     } else {
4524         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
4525     }
4526 }
4527
4528 sub run_firmware_scripts {
4529     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
4530     # Run firmware packages
4531     for my $dir (@dirs) {
4532         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
4533         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
4534         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
4535             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
4536             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
4537         }
4538         closedir $dh;
4539     }
4540 }
4541
4542 sub download {
4543     my $url = shift;
4544     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
4545     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
4546 }
4547
4548 sub upgrade_dell {
4549     my @dirs;
4550     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4551     chomp $product;
4552
4553     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
4554
4555         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
4556         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
4557
4558         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
4559             CLEANUP => 1
4560             );
4561         chdir($tmpdir);
4562         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
4563         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
4564         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
4565         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
4566         my $fwopts = "-q";
4567         if (@paths) {
4568             for my $url (@paths) {
4569                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
4570             }
4571             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
4572         } else {
4573             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4574             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4575         }
4576         chdir('/');
4577     } else {
4578         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4579         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4580     }
4581 }
4582
4583 sub fetch_dell_fw {
4584     my $path = shift;
4585     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
4586     download($url);
4587 }
4588
4589 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
4590 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
4591 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
4592 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
4593     my $filename = shift;
4594
4595     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4596     chomp $product;
4597     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
4598
4599     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
4600
4601     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
4602     my @paths;
4603     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
4604         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
4605         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
4606         my $oscode;
4607         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
4608             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
4609         } else {
4610             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
4611         }
4612         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
4613         {
4614             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
4615         }
4616     }
4617     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
4618         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
4619
4620         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
4621         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
4622
4623         my $cpath = $component->{path};
4624         for my $path (@paths) {
4625             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
4626                 push(@paths, $cpath);
4627             }
4628         }
4629     }
4630     return @paths;
4631 }
4632 </pre>
4633
4634 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
4635 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
4636 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
4637 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
4638 outdated.</p>
4639
4640       </div>
4641       <div class="tags">
4642
4643
4644         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>.
4645
4646
4647       </div>
4648     </div>
4649     <div class="padding"></div>
4650
4651     <div class="entry">
4652       <div class="title">
4653         <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>
4654       </div>
4655       <div class="date">
4656          4th August 2011
4657       </div>
4658       <div class="body">
4659         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
4660 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
4661 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
4662 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
4663 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
4664 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
4665 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
4666 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
4667 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
4668
4669 <p><blockquote>
4670 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
4671 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
4672 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
4673 </blockquote></p>
4674
4675 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
4676 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
4677 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
4678 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
4679 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
4680 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
4681 hard to explain.</p>
4682
4683 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
4684 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
4685 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
4686 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
4687 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
4688 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
4689 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
4690 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
4691 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
4692 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
4693 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
4694 mode).</p>
4695
4696 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
4697 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
4698 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
4699 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
4700 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
4701 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
4702 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
4703 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
4704 after visiting single user mode.</p>
4705
4706 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
4707 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
4708 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
4709 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
4710 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
4711 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
4712 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
4713 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
4714
4715 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
4716 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
4717 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
4718
4719       </div>
4720       <div class="tags">
4721
4722
4723         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>.
4724
4725
4726       </div>
4727     </div>
4728     <div class="padding"></div>
4729
4730     <div class="entry">
4731       <div class="title">
4732         <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>
4733       </div>
4734       <div class="date">
4735         30th July 2011
4736       </div>
4737       <div class="body">
4738         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
4739 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
4740 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
4741 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
4742 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
4743 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
4744 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
4745 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
4746 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
4747 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
4748 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
4749 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
4750 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
4751
4752 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
4753 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
4754 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
4755 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
4756 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
4757 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
4758 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
4759 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
4760 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
4761
4762 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
4763 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
4764 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
4765 is presented.</p>
4766
4767 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
4768 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
4769 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
4770 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
4771 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
4772 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
4773 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
4774 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
4775 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
4776 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
4777 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
4778 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
4779 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
4780 find time to push this forward.</p>
4781
4782       </div>
4783       <div class="tags">
4784
4785
4786         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>.
4787
4788
4789       </div>
4790     </div>
4791     <div class="padding"></div>
4792
4793     <div class="entry">
4794       <div class="title">
4795         <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>
4796       </div>
4797       <div class="date">
4798         29th July 2011
4799       </div>
4800       <div class="body">
4801         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
4802 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
4803 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
4804 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
4805 issues.</p>
4806
4807 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
4808 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
4809 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
4810
4811 <ol>
4812
4813 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
4814 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
4815 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
4816 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
4817 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
4818 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
4819 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
4820 Debian.</li>
4821
4822 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
4823 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
4824 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
4825 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
4826 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
4827 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
4828 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
4829 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
4830 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
4831 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
4832 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
4833 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
4834 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
4835
4836 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
4837 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
4838 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
4839 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
4840 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
4841 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
4842 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
4843 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
4844 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
4845 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
4846
4847 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
4848 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
4849 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
4850 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
4851 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
4852 latter behaviour.</li>
4853
4854 </ol>
4855
4856 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
4857 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
4858 it do not matter much.</p>
4859
4860 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
4861 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
4862 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
4863
4864       </div>
4865       <div class="tags">
4866
4867
4868         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>.
4869
4870
4871       </div>
4872     </div>
4873     <div class="padding"></div>
4874
4875     <div class="entry">
4876       <div class="title">
4877         <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>
4878       </div>
4879       <div class="date">
4880         26th July 2011
4881       </div>
4882       <div class="body">
4883         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
4884 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
4885 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
4886 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
4887 security support for a few years.</p>
4888
4889 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
4890 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
4891 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
4892 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
4893 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
4894 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
4895 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
4896 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
4897 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
4898 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
4899 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
4900 easier in the future.</p>
4901
4902 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
4903 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
4904 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
4905 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
4906 do not have time for.</p>
4907
4908       </div>
4909       <div class="tags">
4910
4911
4912         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>.
4913
4914
4915       </div>
4916     </div>
4917     <div class="padding"></div>
4918
4919     <div class="entry">
4920       <div class="title">
4921         <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>
4922       </div>
4923       <div class="date">
4924          3rd April 2011
4925       </div>
4926       <div class="body">
4927         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
4928 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
4929 update in English.</p>
4930
4931 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
4932 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
4933 of the British service
4934 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
4935 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
4936 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
4937 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
4938 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
4939 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
4940 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
4941 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
4942 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
4943 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
4944 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
4945 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
4946 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
4947
4948 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
4949 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
4950 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
4951 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
4952 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
4953 public infrastructure.</p>
4954
4955 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
4956 such service?</p>
4957
4958       </div>
4959       <div class="tags">
4960
4961
4962         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>.
4963
4964
4965       </div>
4966     </div>
4967     <div class="padding"></div>
4968
4969     <div class="entry">
4970       <div class="title">
4971         <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>
4972       </div>
4973       <div class="date">
4974         28th January 2011
4975       </div>
4976       <div class="body">
4977         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
4978 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
4979 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
4980 available on the Internet, and check our locally
4981 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
4982 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
4983 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
4984 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
4985 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
4986 out which security holes were present in our free software
4987 collection.</p>
4988
4989 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
4990 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
4991 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
4992 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
4993 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
4994 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
4995 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
4996 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
4997 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
4998 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
4999 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
5000 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
5001 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
5002 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
5003 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
5004 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
5005
5006 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
5007 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
5008 check out, one could look up
5009 <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
5010 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
5011 The most recent one is
5012 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
5013 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
5014 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
5015
5016 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
5017 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
5018 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
5019 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
5020 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
5021 security issues out.</p>
5022
5023 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
5024 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
5025 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
5026 RHEL is providing
5027 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
5028 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
5029 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
5030
5031 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
5032 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
5033 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
5034 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
5035 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
5036 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
5037 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
5038 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
5039 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
5040 established soon.</p>
5041
5042 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
5043 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
5044 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
5045 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
5046 for their packages.</p>
5047
5048       </div>
5049       <div class="tags">
5050
5051
5052         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>.
5053
5054
5055       </div>
5056     </div>
5057     <div class="padding"></div>
5058
5059     <div class="entry">
5060       <div class="title">
5061         <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>
5062       </div>
5063       <div class="date">
5064         23rd January 2011
5065       </div>
5066       <div class="body">
5067         <p>In the
5068 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
5069 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
5070 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
5071 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
5072 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
5073 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
5074 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
5075 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
5076 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
5077 one of my machines like this:</p>
5078
5079 <pre>
5080 loaded modules:
5081 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
5082 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
5083 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
5084 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
5085 10de:03ec pata_amd
5086 10de:03f6 sata_nv
5087 1022:1103 k8temp
5088 109e:036e bttv
5089 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
5090 11ab:4364 sky2
5091 </pre>
5092
5093 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
5094 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
5095
5096 <pre>
5097 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
5098     echo loaded pci modules:
5099     (
5100         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
5101         for address in * ; do
5102             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5103                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5104                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5105                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5106                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
5107                     echo "$id $module"
5108                 fi
5109             fi
5110         done
5111     )
5112     echo
5113 fi
5114 </pre>
5115
5116 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
5117 mappings:</p>
5118
5119 <pre>
5120 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
5121     echo loaded usb modules:
5122     (
5123         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
5124         for address in * ; do
5125             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5126                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5127                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5128                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5129                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
5130                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
5131                         echo "$id $module"
5132                     fi
5133                 fi
5134             fi
5135         done
5136     )
5137     echo
5138 fi
5139 </pre>
5140
5141 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
5142 well.</p>
5143
5144       </div>
5145       <div class="tags">
5146
5147
5148         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>.
5149
5150
5151       </div>
5152     </div>
5153     <div class="padding"></div>
5154
5155     <div class="entry">
5156       <div class="title">
5157         <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>
5158       </div>
5159       <div class="date">
5160         22nd December 2010
5161       </div>
5162       <div class="body">
5163         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
5164 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
5165 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
5166 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
5167 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
5168 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
5169 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
5170 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
5171 university.</p>
5172
5173 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
5174 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
5175 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
5176 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
5177 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
5178 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
5179 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
5180 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
5181
5182 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
5183 I perform on a new model.</p>
5184
5185 <ul>
5186
5187 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
5188 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
5189 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
5190
5191 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
5192 installation, X.org is working.</li>
5193
5194 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
5195 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
5196 reported by the program.</li>
5197
5198 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
5199 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
5200 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
5201 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
5202 normally test this by playing
5203 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
5204 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
5205
5206 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
5207 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5208
5209 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
5210 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5211
5212 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
5213 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
5214
5215 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
5216 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
5217 few.</li>
5218
5219 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
5220 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
5221 notice this.</li>
5222
5223 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
5224 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
5225 resume.</li>
5226
5227 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
5228 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
5229 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
5230 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
5231 not.</li>
5232
5233 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
5234 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
5235 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
5236 existence.</li>
5237
5238 </ul>
5239
5240 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
5241 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
5242 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
5243 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
5244 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
5245 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
5246 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
5247 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
5248
5249       </div>
5250       <div class="tags">
5251
5252
5253         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>.
5254
5255
5256       </div>
5257     </div>
5258     <div class="padding"></div>
5259
5260     <div class="entry">
5261       <div class="title">
5262         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
5263       </div>
5264       <div class="date">
5265         11th December 2010
5266       </div>
5267       <div class="body">
5268         <p>As I continue to explore
5269 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
5270 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
5271 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
5272
5273 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
5274 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
5275 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
5276 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
5277 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
5278 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
5279 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
5280 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
5281 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
5282 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
5283 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
5284 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
5285 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
5286 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
5287 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
5288 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
5289 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
5290 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
5291 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
5292 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
5293
5294 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
5295 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
5296 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
5297 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
5298 If the Skolelinux foundation
5299 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
5300 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
5301 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
5302 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
5303 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
5304 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
5305 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
5306 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
5307
5308 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
5309 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
5310 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
5311 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
5312 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
5313 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
5314 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
5315 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
5316 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
5317 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
5318 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
5319 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
5320 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
5321 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
5322 currencies.</p>
5323
5324 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
5325 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
5326 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
5327 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
5328 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
5329 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
5330 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
5331 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
5332 BitCoins.  Check out
5333 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
5334 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
5335 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
5336 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
5337 yet.</p>
5338
5339 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
5340 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
5341 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
5342 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
5343 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
5344
5345       </div>
5346       <div class="tags">
5347
5348
5349         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>.
5350
5351
5352       </div>
5353     </div>
5354     <div class="padding"></div>
5355
5356     <div class="entry">
5357       <div class="title">
5358         <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>
5359       </div>
5360       <div class="date">
5361         10th December 2010
5362       </div>
5363       <div class="body">
5364         <p>With this weeks lawless
5365 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
5366 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
5367 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
5368 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
5369 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
5370 A blog post from
5371 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
5372 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
5373 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
5374 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
5375 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
5376 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
5377 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
5378
5379 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
5380 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
5381 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
5382 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
5383 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
5384 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
5385 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
5386 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
5387 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
5388 Debian</a> soon.</p>
5389
5390 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
5391 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
5392 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
5393 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
5394 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
5395 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
5396 you can even get
5397 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
5398 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
5399 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
5400 on the current exchange rates.</p>
5401
5402 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
5403 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
5404 donations to the address
5405 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
5406
5407       </div>
5408       <div class="tags">
5409
5410
5411         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>.
5412
5413
5414       </div>
5415     </div>
5416     <div class="padding"></div>
5417
5418     <div class="entry">
5419       <div class="title">
5420         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
5421       </div>
5422       <div class="date">
5423         27th November 2010
5424       </div>
5425       <div class="body">
5426         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
5427 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
5428 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
5429 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
5430 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
5431 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
5432 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
5433 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
5434
5435 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
5436 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5437 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
5438 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
5439 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
5440 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
5441 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
5442 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
5443 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
5444 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
5445 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
5446
5447 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
5448 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
5449 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
5450 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
5451 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
5452 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
5453 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
5454 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
5455 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
5456 what is going on.</p>
5457
5458       </div>
5459       <div class="tags">
5460
5461
5462         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>.
5463
5464
5465       </div>
5466     </div>
5467     <div class="padding"></div>
5468
5469     <div class="entry">
5470       <div class="title">
5471         <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>
5472       </div>
5473       <div class="date">
5474         22nd November 2010
5475       </div>
5476       <div class="body">
5477         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
5478 upgrade testing of the
5479 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
5480 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
5481 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
5482 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
5483
5484 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
5485
5486 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5487
5488 <blockquote><p>
5489   apache2.2-bin
5490   aptdaemon
5491   baobab
5492   binfmt-support
5493   browser-plugin-gnash
5494   cheese-common
5495   cli-common
5496   cups-pk-helper
5497   dmz-cursor-theme
5498   empathy
5499   empathy-common
5500   freedesktop-sound-theme
5501   freeglut3
5502   gconf-defaults-service
5503   gdm-themes
5504   gedit-plugins
5505   geoclue
5506   geoclue-hostip
5507   geoclue-localnet
5508   geoclue-manual
5509   geoclue-yahoo
5510   gnash
5511   gnash-common
5512   gnome
5513   gnome-backgrounds
5514   gnome-cards-data
5515   gnome-codec-install
5516   gnome-core
5517   gnome-desktop-environment
5518   gnome-disk-utility
5519   gnome-screenshot
5520   gnome-search-tool
5521   gnome-session-canberra
5522   gnome-system-log
5523   gnome-themes-extras
5524   gnome-themes-more
5525   gnome-user-share
5526   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5527   gstreamer0.10-tools
5528   gtk2-engines
5529   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5530   gtk2-engines-smooth
5531   hamster-applet
5532   libapache2-mod-dnssd
5533   libapr1
5534   libaprutil1
5535   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
5536   libaprutil1-ldap
5537   libart2.0-cil
5538   libboost-date-time1.42.0
5539   libboost-python1.42.0
5540   libboost-thread1.42.0
5541   libchamplain-0.4-0
5542   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
5543   libcheese-gtk18
5544   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
5545   libcryptui0
5546   libdiscid0
5547   libelf1
5548   libepc-1.0-2
5549   libepc-common
5550   libepc-ui-1.0-2
5551   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5552   libfreerdp0
5553   libgconf2.0-cil
5554   libgdata-common
5555   libgdata7
5556   libgdu-gtk0
5557   libgee2
5558   libgeoclue0
5559   libgexiv2-0
5560   libgif4
5561   libglade2.0-cil
5562   libglib2.0-cil
5563   libgmime2.4-cil
5564   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5565   libgnome2.24-cil
5566   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
5567   libgpod-common
5568   libgpod4
5569   libgtk2.0-cil
5570   libgtkglext1
5571   libgtksourceview2.0-common
5572   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5573   libmono-addins0.2-cil
5574   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
5575   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5576   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
5577   libmono-posix2.0-cil
5578   libmono-security2.0-cil
5579   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5580   libmono-system2.0-cil
5581   libmtp8
5582   libmusicbrainz3-6
5583   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
5584   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
5585   libopal3.6.8
5586   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
5587   libpt2.6.7
5588   libpython2.6
5589   librpm1
5590   librpmio1
5591   libsdl1.2debian
5592   libsrtp0
5593   libssh-4
5594   libtelepathy-farsight0
5595   libtelepathy-glib0
5596   libtidy-0.99-0
5597   media-player-info
5598   mesa-utils
5599   mono-2.0-gac
5600   mono-gac
5601   mono-runtime
5602   nautilus-sendto
5603   nautilus-sendto-empathy
5604   p7zip-full
5605   pkg-config
5606   python-aptdaemon
5607   python-aptdaemon-gtk
5608   python-axiom
5609   python-beautifulsoup
5610   python-bugbuddy
5611   python-clientform
5612   python-coherence
5613   python-configobj
5614   python-crypto
5615   python-cupshelpers
5616   python-elementtree
5617   python-epsilon
5618   python-evolution
5619   python-feedparser
5620   python-gdata
5621   python-gdbm
5622   python-gst0.10
5623   python-gtkglext1
5624   python-gtksourceview2
5625   python-httplib2
5626   python-louie
5627   python-mako
5628   python-markupsafe
5629   python-mechanize
5630   python-nevow
5631   python-notify
5632   python-opengl
5633   python-openssl
5634   python-pam
5635   python-pkg-resources
5636   python-pyasn1
5637   python-pysqlite2
5638   python-rdflib
5639   python-serial
5640   python-tagpy
5641   python-twisted-bin
5642   python-twisted-conch
5643   python-twisted-core
5644   python-twisted-web
5645   python-utidylib
5646   python-webkit
5647   python-xdg
5648   python-zope.interface
5649   remmina
5650   remmina-plugin-data
5651   remmina-plugin-rdp
5652   remmina-plugin-vnc
5653   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5654   rhythmbox-plugins
5655   rpm-common
5656   rpm2cpio
5657   seahorse-plugins
5658   shotwell
5659   software-center
5660   system-config-printer-udev
5661   telepathy-gabble
5662   telepathy-mission-control-5
5663   telepathy-salut
5664   tomboy
5665   totem
5666   totem-coherence
5667   totem-mozilla
5668   totem-plugins
5669   transmission-common
5670   xdg-user-dirs
5671   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
5672   xserver-xephyr
5673 </p></blockquote>
5674
5675 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5676
5677 <blockquote><p>
5678   cheese
5679   ekiga
5680   eog
5681   epiphany-extensions
5682   evolution-exchange
5683   fast-user-switch-applet
5684   file-roller
5685   gcalctool
5686   gconf-editor
5687   gdm
5688   gedit
5689   gedit-common
5690   gnome-games
5691   gnome-games-data
5692   gnome-nettool
5693   gnome-system-tools
5694   gnome-themes
5695   gnuchess
5696   gucharmap
5697   guile-1.8-libs
5698   libavahi-ui0
5699   libdmx1
5700   libgalago3
5701   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
5702   libgtksourceview2.0-0
5703   liblircclient0
5704   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
5705   libspeexdsp1
5706   libsvga1
5707   rhythmbox
5708   seahorse
5709   sound-juicer
5710   system-config-printer
5711   totem-common
5712   transmission-gtk
5713   vinagre
5714   vino
5715 </p></blockquote>
5716
5717 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5718
5719 <blockquote><p>
5720   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5721 </p></blockquote>
5722
5723 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5724
5725 <blockquote><p>
5726 [nothing]
5727 </p></blockquote>
5728
5729 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
5730
5731 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5732
5733 <blockquote><p>
5734   ksmserver
5735 </p></blockquote>
5736
5737 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5738
5739 <blockquote><p>
5740   kwin
5741   network-manager-kde
5742 </p></blockquote>
5743
5744 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5745
5746 <blockquote><p>
5747   arts
5748   dolphin
5749   freespacenotifier
5750   google-gadgets-gst
5751   google-gadgets-xul
5752   kappfinder
5753   kcalc
5754   kcharselect
5755   kde-core
5756   kde-plasma-desktop
5757   kde-standard
5758   kde-window-manager
5759   kdeartwork
5760   kdeartwork-emoticons
5761   kdeartwork-style
5762   kdeartwork-theme-icon
5763   kdebase
5764   kdebase-apps
5765   kdebase-workspace
5766   kdebase-workspace-bin
5767   kdebase-workspace-data
5768   kdeeject
5769   kdelibs
5770   kdeplasma-addons
5771   kdeutils
5772   kdewallpapers
5773   kdf
5774   kfloppy
5775   kgpg
5776   khelpcenter4
5777   kinfocenter
5778   konq-plugins-l10n
5779   konqueror-nsplugins
5780   kscreensaver
5781   kscreensaver-xsavers
5782   ktimer
5783   kwrite
5784   libgle3
5785   libkde4-ruby1.8
5786   libkonq5
5787   libkonq5-templates
5788   libnetpbm10
5789   libplasma-ruby
5790   libplasma-ruby1.8
5791   libqt4-ruby1.8
5792   marble-data
5793   marble-plugins
5794   netpbm
5795   nuvola-icon-theme
5796   plasma-dataengines-workspace
5797   plasma-desktop
5798   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
5799   plasma-runners-addons
5800   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
5801   plasma-scriptengine-python
5802   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
5803   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
5804   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
5805   plasma-scriptengines
5806   plasma-wallpapers-addons
5807   plasma-widget-folderview
5808   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
5809   ruby
5810   sweeper
5811   update-notifier-kde
5812   xscreensaver-data-extra
5813   xscreensaver-gl
5814   xscreensaver-gl-extra
5815   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
5816 </p></blockquote>
5817
5818 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5819
5820 <blockquote><p>
5821   ark
5822   google-gadgets-common
5823   google-gadgets-qt
5824   htdig
5825   kate
5826   kdebase-bin
5827   kdebase-data
5828   kdepasswd
5829   kfind
5830   klipper
5831   konq-plugins
5832   konqueror
5833   ksysguard
5834   ksysguardd
5835   libarchive1
5836   libcln6
5837   libeet1
5838   libeina-svn-06
5839   libggadget-1.0-0b
5840   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
5841   libgps19
5842   libkdecorations4
5843   libkephal4
5844   libkonq4
5845   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
5846   libkscreensaver5
5847   libksgrd4
5848   libksignalplotter4
5849   libkunitconversion4
5850   libkwineffects1a
5851   libmarblewidget4
5852   libntrack-qt4-1
5853   libntrack0
5854   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
5855   libplasmaclock4a
5856   libplasmagenericshell4
5857   libprocesscore4a
5858   libprocessui4a
5859   libqalculate5
5860   libqedje0a
5861   libqtruby4shared2
5862   libqzion0a
5863   libruby1.8
5864   libscim8c2a
5865   libsmokekdecore4-3
5866   libsmokekdeui4-3
5867   libsmokekfile3
5868   libsmokekhtml3
5869   libsmokekio3
5870   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
5871   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
5872   libsmokekparts3
5873   libsmokektexteditor3
5874   libsmokekutils3
5875   libsmokenepomuk3
5876   libsmokephonon3
5877   libsmokeplasma3
5878   libsmokeqtcore4-3
5879   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
5880   libsmokeqtgui4-3
5881   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
5882   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
5883   libsmokeqtscript4-3
5884   libsmokeqtsql4-3
5885   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
5886   libsmokeqttest4-3
5887   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
5888   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
5889   libsmokeqtxml4-3
5890   libsmokesolid3
5891   libsmokesoprano3
5892   libtaskmanager4a
5893   libtidy-0.99-0
5894   libweather-ion4a
5895   libxklavier16
5896   libxxf86misc1
5897   okteta
5898   oxygencursors
5899   plasma-dataengines-addons
5900   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
5901   plasma-widget-lancelot
5902   plasma-widgets-addons
5903   plasma-widgets-workspace
5904   polkit-kde-1
5905   ruby1.8
5906   systemsettings
5907   update-notifier-common
5908 </p></blockquote>
5909
5910 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
5911 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
5912 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
5913 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
5914
5915       </div>
5916       <div class="tags">
5917
5918
5919         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>.
5920
5921
5922       </div>
5923     </div>
5924     <div class="padding"></div>
5925
5926     <div class="entry">
5927       <div class="title">
5928         <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>
5929       </div>
5930       <div class="date">
5931         22nd November 2010
5932       </div>
5933       <div class="body">
5934         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
5935 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
5936 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
5937 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
5938 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
5939 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
5940 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
5941 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
5942 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
5943
5944 <p>I found
5945 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
5946 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
5947 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
5948 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
5949 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
5950 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
5951
5952 <pre>
5953 #!/bin/sh
5954
5955 # Based on
5956 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
5957
5958 set -e
5959 set -x
5960
5961 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
5962     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
5963     exit 1
5964 else
5965     host="$1"
5966 fi
5967
5968 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
5969     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
5970     exit 1
5971 fi
5972
5973 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
5974 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
5975 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
5976 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
5977
5978 img=$host.img
5979 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
5980 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
5981
5982 parted $img mklabel msdos
5983 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
5984 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
5985 parted $img set 1 boot on
5986
5987 modprobe dm-mod
5988 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
5989 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
5990
5991 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
5992 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
5993 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
5994
5995 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
5996 losetup -d /dev/loop0
5997 </pre>
5998
5999 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
6000 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
6001
6002 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
6003 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
6004 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
6005 seem to work just fine.</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>.
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/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>
6021       </div>
6022       <div class="date">
6023         20th November 2010
6024       </div>
6025       <div class="body">
6026         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
6027 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6028 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
6029 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
6030
6031 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
6032 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
6033 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
6034
6035 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6036
6037 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6038
6039 <blockquote><p>
6040   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
6041   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
6042   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
6043   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
6044   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
6045   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
6046   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
6047   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
6048   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
6049   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
6050   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6051   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6052   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
6053   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
6054   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
6055   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
6056   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6057   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
6058   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6059   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
6060   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
6061   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6062   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
6063   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
6064   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
6065   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6066   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6067   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
6068   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6069   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
6070   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
6071   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6072   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
6073   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
6074   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
6075   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
6076   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
6077   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
6078   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
6079   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
6080   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
6081   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
6082   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
6083   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
6084   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
6085   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
6086   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
6087   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
6088   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
6089   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
6090   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
6091   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
6092   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6093   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
6094   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
6095   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
6096   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
6097   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
6098   zip
6099 </p></blockquote>
6100
6101 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
6102
6103 <blockquote><p>
6104   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
6105   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
6106   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
6107   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
6108   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
6109   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
6110   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
6111   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
6112   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
6113   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
6114   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
6115   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6116   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6117   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6118   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6119   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
6120   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6121   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
6122   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
6123   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
6124   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
6125   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
6126   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6127   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
6128   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
6129   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
6130   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
6131   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
6132   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
6133 </p></blockquote>
6134
6135 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6136
6137 <blockquote><p>
6138   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6139 </p></blockquote>
6140
6141 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6142
6143 <blockquote><p>
6144 [nothing]
6145 </p></blockquote>
6146
6147 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6148
6149 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6150
6151 <blockquote><p>
6152   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
6153   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6154   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
6155   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
6156   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
6157   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
6158   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6159   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
6160   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
6161   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6162   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
6163   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
6164   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
6165   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
6166   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
6167   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
6168   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
6169   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
6170   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
6171   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
6172   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
6173   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
6174   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
6175   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
6176   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
6177   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
6178   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
6179   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
6180   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
6181   ttf-sazanami-gothic
6182 </p></blockquote>
6183
6184 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6185
6186 <blockquote><p>
6187   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
6188   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
6189   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
6190   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
6191   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
6192   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
6193   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
6194   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
6195   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
6196   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
6197   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
6198   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
6199   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
6200   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
6201   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6202   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6203   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
6204   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
6205   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6206   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
6207   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6208   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
6209   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6210   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6211   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
6212   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
6213   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
6214   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
6215   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
6216   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
6217   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
6218   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
6219   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
6220 </p></blockquote>
6221
6222 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6223
6224 <blockquote><p>
6225   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
6226   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
6227   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
6228   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
6229   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6230   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
6231   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6232 </p></blockquote>
6233
6234 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6235
6236 <blockquote><p>
6237   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
6238 </p></blockquote>
6239
6240       </div>
6241       <div class="tags">
6242
6243
6244         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>.
6245
6246
6247       </div>
6248     </div>
6249     <div class="padding"></div>
6250
6251     <div class="entry">
6252       <div class="title">
6253         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
6254       </div>
6255       <div class="date">
6256         20th November 2010
6257       </div>
6258       <div class="body">
6259         <p>Answering
6260 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
6261 call from the Gnash project</a> for
6262 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
6263 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
6264 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
6265 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
6266 releases out more often.</p>
6267
6268 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
6269 I have considered setting up a <a
6270 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
6271 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
6272 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
6273 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
6274 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
6275 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
6276 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
6277 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
6278 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
6279 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
6280 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
6281 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
6282
6283       </div>
6284       <div class="tags">
6285
6286
6287         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>.
6288
6289
6290       </div>
6291     </div>
6292     <div class="padding"></div>
6293
6294     <div class="entry">
6295       <div class="title">
6296         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
6297       </div>
6298       <div class="date">
6299          9th November 2010
6300       </div>
6301       <div class="body">
6302         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
6303
6304 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
6305 3D linked in from
6306 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
6307 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
6308
6309       </div>
6310       <div class="tags">
6311
6312
6313         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>.
6314
6315
6316       </div>
6317     </div>
6318     <div class="padding"></div>
6319
6320     <div class="entry">
6321       <div class="title">
6322         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
6323       </div>
6324       <div class="date">
6325         24th October 2010
6326       </div>
6327       <div class="body">
6328         <p>Some updates.</p>
6329
6330 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
6331 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
6332 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
6333 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
6334 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
6335 :)</p>
6336
6337 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
6338 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
6339 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
6340 It is called
6341 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
6342 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
6343 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
6344 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
6345 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
6346 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
6347
6348 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
6349 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
6350 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
6351 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
6352 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
6353 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
6354 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
6355 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
6356 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
6357 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
6358
6359       </div>
6360       <div class="tags">
6361
6362
6363         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>.
6364
6365
6366       </div>
6367     </div>
6368     <div class="padding"></div>
6369
6370     <div class="entry">
6371       <div class="title">
6372         <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>
6373       </div>
6374       <div class="date">
6375          4th September 2010
6376       </div>
6377       <div class="body">
6378         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
6379 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
6380 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
6381 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
6382 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
6383 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
6384 installed.</p>
6385
6386 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
6387 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
6388 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
6389 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
6390 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6391 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
6392 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
6393 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
6394 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
6395
6396 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
6397 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
6398 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
6399 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
6400 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
6401 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
6402 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
6403 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
6404 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
6405 pages they want to visit.</p>
6406
6407 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
6408 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
6409 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
6410 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
6411 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
6412 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
6413 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
6414 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
6415 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
6416 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
6417 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
6418
6419       </div>
6420       <div class="tags">
6421
6422
6423         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>.
6424
6425
6426       </div>
6427     </div>
6428     <div class="padding"></div>
6429
6430     <div class="entry">
6431       <div class="title">
6432         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
6433       </div>
6434       <div class="date">
6435         27th July 2010
6436       </div>
6437       <div class="body">
6438         <p>I discovered this while doing
6439 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
6440 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
6441 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
6442 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
6443 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
6444
6445 <p>An example is from todays
6446 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
6447 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
6448 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
6449 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
6450 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
6451 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
6452 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
6453
6454 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
6455
6456 <blockquote><pre>
6457 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
6458  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
6459   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
6460 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
6461  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
6462 </pre></blockquote>
6463
6464 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
6465 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
6466 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
6467 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
6468 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
6469 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
6470 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
6471 of dependency loops.</p>
6472
6473 <p>Thanks to
6474 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
6475 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
6476 dependencies
6477 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
6478 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
6479
6480 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
6481 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
6482 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
6483 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
6484 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
6485 it.</p>
6486
6487       </div>
6488       <div class="tags">
6489
6490
6491         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>.
6492
6493
6494       </div>
6495     </div>
6496     <div class="padding"></div>
6497
6498     <div class="entry">
6499       <div class="title">
6500         <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>
6501       </div>
6502       <div class="date">
6503         17th July 2010
6504       </div>
6505       <div class="body">
6506         <p>This is a
6507 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
6508 on my
6509 <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
6510 work</a> on
6511 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
6512 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
6513
6514 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
6515 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
6516 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
6517 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
6518
6519 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
6520 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
6521 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
6522
6523 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
6524
6525 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
6526 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
6527 the web.
6528
6529 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
6530 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
6531 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
6532 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
6533 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
6534 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
6535
6536 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
6537 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
6538 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
6539 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
6540 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
6541 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
6542 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
6543 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
6544 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
6545 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
6546 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
6547 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
6548 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
6549 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
6550 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
6551 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
6552
6553 <blockquote><pre>
6554 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6555   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6556   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6557   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6558   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6559   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6560   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6561
6562 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6563   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6564   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
6565   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
6566   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
6567   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
6568 </pre></blockquote>
6569
6570 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
6571 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
6572 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
6573 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6574 also exist.</p>
6575
6576 <blockquote><pre>
6577 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6578 objectclass: top
6579 objectclass: dnsdomain
6580 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6581 dc: tjener
6582 arecord: 10.0.2.2
6583 associateddomain: tjener.intern
6584
6585 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6586 objectclass: top
6587 objectclass: dnsdomain2
6588 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6589 dc: 2
6590 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
6591 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
6592 </pre></blockquote>
6593
6594 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
6595 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
6596 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
6597 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
6598 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
6599 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
6600 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
6601 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
6602 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
6603 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
6604 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
6605 instead.</p>
6606
6607 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
6608 like this:</p>
6609
6610 <blockquote><pre>
6611 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6612   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6613   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6614   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6615   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6616   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6617
6618 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6619   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
6620 </pre></blockquote>
6621
6622 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
6623 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
6624 reverse lookups.</p>
6625
6626 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
6627 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
6628 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
6629 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
6630
6631 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
6632 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
6633 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
6634
6635 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
6636 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
6637 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
6638 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
6639 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
6640
6641 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
6642 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
6643 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
6644 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
6645 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
6646
6647 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
6648 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
6649 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
6650 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
6651 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
6652 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
6653
6654 <blockquote><pre>
6655 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
6656     SUP top
6657     AUXILIARY
6658     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
6659           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
6660           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
6661           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
6662           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
6663     ))
6664 </pre></blockquote>
6665
6666 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
6667 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
6668 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
6669 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
6670 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
6671 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
6672
6673 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
6674
6675 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
6676 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
6677 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
6678 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
6679 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
6680
6681 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
6682 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
6683 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
6684 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
6685
6686 <blockquote><pre>
6687 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
6688 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
6689 </pre></blockquote>
6690
6691 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
6692 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
6693 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
6694 search result is this entry:</p>
6695
6696 <blockquote><pre>
6697 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6698 cn: dhcp
6699 objectClass: top
6700 objectClass: dhcpServer
6701 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6702 </pre></blockquote>
6703
6704 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
6705 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
6706 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
6707 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
6708 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
6709 The search result is this entry:</p>
6710
6711 <blockquote><pre>
6712 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6713 cn: DHCP Config
6714 objectClass: top
6715 objectClass: dhcpService
6716 objectClass: dhcpOptions
6717 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6718 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
6719 dhcpStatements: authoritative
6720 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
6721 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
6722 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
6723 </pre></blockquote>
6724
6725 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
6726 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
6727 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
6728 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
6729 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
6730 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
6731 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
6732 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
6733 related computer objects.</p>
6734
6735 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
6736 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
6737 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
6738 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
6739 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
6740 like:</p>
6741
6742 <blockquote><pre>
6743 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6744 cn: hostname
6745 objectClass: top
6746 objectClass: dhcpHost
6747 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6748 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
6749 </pre></blockquote>
6750
6751 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
6752 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
6753 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
6754 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
6755 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
6756 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
6757 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
6758 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
6759 structural object class.
6760
6761 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
6762
6763 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
6764 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
6765 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
6766 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
6767 in the configuration.</p>
6768
6769 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
6770 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
6771 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
6772 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
6773 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
6774 structure.</p>
6775
6776 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
6777 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
6778
6779 <blockquote><pre>
6780 ou=services
6781   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
6782     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
6783     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6784       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6785         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6786     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6787       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6788         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6789     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
6790       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
6791 </pre></blockquote>
6792
6793 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
6794 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
6795 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
6796 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
6797
6798 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
6799 like this:</p>
6800
6801 <blockquote><pre>
6802 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6803 dc: hostname
6804 objectClass: top
6805 objectClass: dhcpHost
6806 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6807 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
6808 associateddomain: hostname.intern
6809 arecord: 10.11.12.13
6810 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6811 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
6812 </pre></blockquote>
6813
6814 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
6815 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
6816 auxiliary object class.</p>
6817
6818       </div>
6819       <div class="tags">
6820
6821
6822         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>.
6823
6824
6825       </div>
6826     </div>
6827     <div class="padding"></div>
6828
6829     <div class="entry">
6830       <div class="title">
6831         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
6832       </div>
6833       <div class="date">
6834         14th July 2010
6835       </div>
6836       <div class="body">
6837         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
6838 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
6839 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
6840 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
6841 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
6842
6843 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
6844 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
6845
6846 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
6847 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
6848 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
6849 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
6850 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
6851 to a slave DNS server.</p>
6852
6853 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
6854 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
6855 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
6856 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
6857 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
6858 seem to work.</p>
6859
6860 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
6861 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
6862 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
6863 this:</p>
6864
6865 <blockquote><pre>
6866   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6867   cn: hostname
6868   objectClass: dhcphost
6869   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6870   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
6871   associateddomain: hostname.intern
6872   arecord: 10.11.12.13
6873   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6874   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
6875   ldapconfigsound: Y
6876 </pre></blockquote>
6877
6878 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
6879 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
6880 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
6881 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
6882
6883 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
6884 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
6885 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
6886 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
6887 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
6888 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
6889 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
6890 might be a good place to put it.</p>
6891
6892 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6893 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
6894
6895       </div>
6896       <div class="tags">
6897
6898
6899         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>.
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/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
6909       </div>
6910       <div class="date">
6911         11th July 2010
6912       </div>
6913       <div class="body">
6914         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
6915 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
6916 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
6917 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
6918
6919 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
6920 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
6921 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
6922 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
6923 LTSP clients.</p>
6924
6925 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
6926 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
6927 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
6928
6929 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
6930 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
6931 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
6932
6933 <blockquote><pre>
6934 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
6935 #
6936 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
6937 #
6938 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
6939 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
6940 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
6941 #
6942 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
6943 # existence of attribute names.
6944 #
6945 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
6946 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
6947 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
6948 #
6949 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
6950 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
6951 #
6952 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
6953 #     SUP top
6954 #     AUXILIARY
6955 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
6956
6957 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
6958 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
6959     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
6960     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
6961         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
6962         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
6963             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
6964             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
6965             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
6966             # bass value on to clients
6967             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
6968         done
6969     done
6970 fi
6971 </pre></blockquote>
6972
6973 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
6974 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
6975 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
6976 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
6977 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
6978
6979 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6980 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
6981
6982 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
6983 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
6984 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
6985 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
6986 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
6987 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
6988
6989       </div>
6990       <div class="tags">
6991
6992
6993         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>.
6994
6995
6996       </div>
6997     </div>
6998     <div class="padding"></div>
6999
7000     <div class="entry">
7001       <div class="title">
7002         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7003       </div>
7004       <div class="date">
7005          9th July 2010
7006       </div>
7007       <div class="body">
7008         <p>Since
7009 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
7010 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
7011 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
7012 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
7013 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
7014 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
7015 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
7016 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
7017 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
7018 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
7019 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
7020 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
7021 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
7022
7023       </div>
7024       <div class="tags">
7025
7026
7027         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>.
7028
7029
7030       </div>
7031     </div>
7032     <div class="padding"></div>
7033
7034     <div class="entry">
7035       <div class="title">
7036         <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>
7037       </div>
7038       <div class="date">
7039          3rd July 2010
7040       </div>
7041       <div class="body">
7042         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
7043 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
7044 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
7045 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
7046 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
7047 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
7048 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
7049 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
7050
7051 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
7052 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
7053 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
7054 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
7055 publish the difference.</p>
7056
7057 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7058
7059 <blockquote><p>
7060   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7061   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
7062   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
7063   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7064   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
7065   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7066   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
7067   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
7068 </p></blockquote>
7069
7070 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7071
7072 <blockquote><p>
7073   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
7074   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
7075   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
7076   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
7077   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
7078   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
7079   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7080   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
7081   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7082   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7083   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
7084   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
7085   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
7086   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
7087   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
7088   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
7089   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
7090   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
7091   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
7092   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
7093 </p></blockquote>
7094
7095 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7096
7097 <blockquote><p>
7098   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
7099   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
7100   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7101   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7102   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
7103   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
7104   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
7105   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7106   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7107   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7108   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7109   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
7110   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
7111   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
7112   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
7113   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
7114   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
7115   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
7116   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
7117   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
7118   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
7119 </p></blockquote>
7120
7121 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7122
7123 <blockquote><p>
7124   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
7125   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
7126   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
7127 </p></blockquote>
7128
7129 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
7130 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
7131 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
7132 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
7133 the difference somewhat.
7134
7135       </div>
7136       <div class="tags">
7137
7138
7139         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>.
7140
7141
7142       </div>
7143     </div>
7144     <div class="padding"></div>
7145
7146     <div class="entry">
7147       <div class="title">
7148         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7149       </div>
7150       <div class="date">
7151         28th June 2010
7152       </div>
7153       <div class="body">
7154         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
7155 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
7156 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
7157 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
7158 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
7159 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
7160 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
7161 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
7162 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
7163 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
7164
7165 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
7166 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
7167 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
7168 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
7169 released.</p>
7170
7171 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
7172 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
7173 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
7174 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
7175
7176 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
7177 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7178
7179 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
7180 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
7181 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
7182 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
7183 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
7184
7185       </div>
7186       <div class="tags">
7187
7188
7189         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>.
7190
7191
7192       </div>
7193     </div>
7194     <div class="padding"></div>
7195
7196     <div class="entry">
7197       <div class="title">
7198         <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>
7199       </div>
7200       <div class="date">
7201         24th June 2010
7202       </div>
7203       <div class="body">
7204         <p>A while back, I
7205 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
7206 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
7207 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
7208 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
7209
7210 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
7211 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
7212 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
7213 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
7214
7215 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
7216 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
7217 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
7218 Debian Edu.</p>
7219
7220 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
7221 the
7222 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
7223 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
7224 available today from IETF.</p>
7225
7226 <pre>
7227 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
7228 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
7229 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
7230  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
7231         NAME 'dhcpHost'
7232         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
7233 -       SUP top
7234 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
7235         MUST cn
7236         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
7237         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
7238 </pre>
7239
7240 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
7241 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
7242 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
7243
7244 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7245 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7246
7247       </div>
7248       <div class="tags">
7249
7250
7251         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>.
7252
7253
7254       </div>
7255     </div>
7256     <div class="padding"></div>
7257
7258     <div class="entry">
7259       <div class="title">
7260         <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>
7261       </div>
7262       <div class="date">
7263         16th June 2010
7264       </div>
7265       <div class="body">
7266         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
7267 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
7268 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
7269 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
7270 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
7271 this:
7272
7273 <blockquote><pre>
7274 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7275 tasksel --new-install
7276 </pre></blockquote>
7277
7278 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
7279 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
7280 any output what so ever.
7281
7282 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
7283 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
7284 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
7285 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
7286 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
7287 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
7288 code like this:
7289
7290 <blockquote><pre>
7291 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7292 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
7293 $cmd
7294 </pre></blockquote>
7295
7296 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
7297 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
7298 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
7299 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
7300 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
7301 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
7302 installation.</p>
7303
7304 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
7305 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
7306 like this.</p>
7307
7308       </div>
7309       <div class="tags">
7310
7311
7312         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>.
7313
7314
7315       </div>
7316     </div>
7317     <div class="padding"></div>
7318
7319     <div class="entry">
7320       <div class="title">
7321         <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>
7322       </div>
7323       <div class="date">
7324         13th June 2010
7325       </div>
7326       <div class="body">
7327         <p>My
7328 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
7329 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
7330 finally made the upgrade logs available from
7331 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
7332 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
7333 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
7334 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
7335
7336 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
7337 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
7338 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
7339 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
7340 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
7341 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
7342 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
7343 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
7344
7345 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
7346 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
7347 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
7348 too surprising.</p>
7349
7350 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
7351 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
7352 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
7353 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
7354 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
7355 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
7356 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
7357 continue.</p>
7358
7359 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
7360 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
7361   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
7362   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
7363   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
7364   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
7365   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
7366   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7367   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7368   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7369   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7370   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7371   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7372   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7373   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7374   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7375   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7376   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7377   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7378   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7379   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7380   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7381   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7382   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7383   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7384   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7385   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7386   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7387   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
7388   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
7389
7390 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
7391
7392 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
7393   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
7394   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
7395   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
7396   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7397   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
7398   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
7399   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
7400   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
7401   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
7402   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7403   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
7404   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7405   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
7406   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
7407   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
7408   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
7409   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
7410   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
7411   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
7412   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
7413   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
7414   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
7415   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
7416   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7417   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
7418   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
7419   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
7420   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
7421   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7422   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7423   zip</p>
7424
7425 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
7426
7427 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
7428   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
7429   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
7430   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
7431   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
7432   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
7433   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7434   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7435   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7436   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7437   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7438   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7439   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7440   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7441   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7442   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7443   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7444   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7445   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7446   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7447   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7448   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7449   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7450   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7451   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7452   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7453   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7454   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
7455
7456 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
7457 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
7458   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
7459   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
7460   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
7461   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
7462   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
7463   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
7464   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
7465   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
7466   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
7467   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
7468   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
7469   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
7470   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
7471   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
7472   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
7473   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
7474   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
7475   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7476   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
7477   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
7478   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
7479   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
7480   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
7481   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
7482   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
7483   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
7484   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
7485   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
7486   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
7487   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
7488   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
7489   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
7490   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
7491   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7492   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7493   xulrunner-1.9</p>
7494
7495
7496       </div>
7497       <div class="tags">
7498
7499
7500         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>.
7501
7502
7503       </div>
7504     </div>
7505     <div class="padding"></div>
7506
7507     <div class="entry">
7508       <div class="title">
7509         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
7510       </div>
7511       <div class="date">
7512         11th June 2010
7513       </div>
7514       <div class="body">
7515         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
7516 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
7517 have been discovered and reported in the process
7518 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
7519 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
7520 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
7521 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
7522 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
7523
7524 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
7525 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
7526 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
7527 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
7528 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
7529 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
7530
7531 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
7532 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
7533 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7534 is created.  The bug report
7535 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
7536 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
7537 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
7538 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
7539 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
7540 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
7541 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
7542 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
7543 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
7544 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
7545 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
7546 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
7547 Debian Squeeze.</p>
7548
7549 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
7550 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
7551 trick:</p>
7552
7553 <blockquote><pre>
7554 #!/bin/sh
7555 set -ex
7556
7557 if [ "$1" ] ; then
7558     desktop=$1
7559 else
7560     desktop=gnome
7561 fi
7562
7563 from=lenny
7564 to=squeeze
7565
7566 exec &lt; /dev/null
7567 unset LANG
7568 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
7569 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
7570 fuser -mv .
7571 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
7572 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7573 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
7574 #!/bin/sh
7575 exit 101
7576 EOF
7577 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
7578 exit_cleanup() {
7579     umount $tmpdir/proc
7580 }
7581 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
7582 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
7583 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
7584
7585 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
7586
7587 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
7588 # to return the correct answers.
7589 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
7590     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
7591
7592 # Include the desktop and laptop task
7593 for test in desktop laptop ; do
7594     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
7595 #!/bin/sh
7596 exit 2
7597 EOF
7598     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
7599 done
7600
7601 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7602 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
7603 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
7604 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
7605
7606 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
7607 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7608 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7609 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
7610 fuser -mv
7611 </pre></blockquote>
7612
7613 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
7614 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
7615 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
7616 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
7617 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
7618 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
7619
7620 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
7621 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
7622 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
7623 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
7624 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
7625 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
7626 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
7627
7628 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
7629 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
7630 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
7631 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
7632 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
7633 packages.</p>
7634
7635       </div>
7636       <div class="tags">
7637
7638
7639         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>.
7640
7641
7642       </div>
7643     </div>
7644     <div class="padding"></div>
7645
7646     <div class="entry">
7647       <div class="title">
7648         <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>
7649       </div>
7650       <div class="date">
7651          6th June 2010
7652       </div>
7653       <div class="body">
7654         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
7655 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
7656 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
7657 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
7658 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
7659 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
7660 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
7661
7662 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
7663 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
7664 COLUMNS):</p>
7665
7666 <blockquote><pre>
7667 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
7668 previous=N
7669 PREVLEVEL=
7670 RUNLEVEL=
7671 runlevel=S
7672 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
7673 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
7674 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
7675 </pre></blockquote>
7676
7677 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
7678 script.</p>
7679
7680 <blockquote><pre>
7681 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
7682 previous=N
7683 PREVLEVEL=N
7684 RUNLEVEL=S
7685 runlevel=S
7686 </pre></blockquote>
7687
7688 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
7689 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
7690 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
7691
7692 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
7693 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
7694 choice.</p>
7695
7696       </div>
7697       <div class="tags">
7698
7699
7700         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>.
7701
7702
7703       </div>
7704     </div>
7705     <div class="padding"></div>
7706
7707     <div class="entry">
7708       <div class="title">
7709         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
7710       </div>
7711       <div class="date">
7712          6th June 2010
7713       </div>
7714       <div class="body">
7715         <p>Via the
7716 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
7717 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
7718 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
7719 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
7720 following the standards wars of today.</p>
7721
7722       </div>
7723       <div class="tags">
7724
7725
7726         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>.
7727
7728
7729       </div>
7730     </div>
7731     <div class="padding"></div>
7732
7733     <div class="entry">
7734       <div class="title">
7735         <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>
7736       </div>
7737       <div class="date">
7738          3rd June 2010
7739       </div>
7740       <div class="body">
7741         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
7742 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
7743 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
7744 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
7745 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
7746
7747 <blockquote><pre>
7748 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
7749   vendor                    count
7750   Dell Computer Corporation     1
7751     PowerEdge 1750              1
7752   IBM                           1
7753     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
7754   Intel                         2
7755   [no-dmi-info]                 3
7756 maintainer:~#
7757 </pre></blockquote>
7758
7759 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
7760 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
7761 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
7762 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
7763 option to list the individual machines.</p>
7764
7765 <p>A larger list is
7766 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
7767 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
7768 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
7769 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
7770 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
7771 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
7772 collector.</p>
7773
7774       </div>
7775       <div class="tags">
7776
7777
7778         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>.
7779
7780
7781       </div>
7782     </div>
7783     <div class="padding"></div>
7784
7785     <div class="entry">
7786       <div class="title">
7787         <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>
7788       </div>
7789       <div class="date">
7790          1st June 2010
7791       </div>
7792       <div class="body">
7793         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
7794 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
7795 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
7796 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
7797 wait.</p>
7798
7799 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
7800 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
7801 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
7802 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
7803 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
7804 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
7805
7806 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
7807 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
7808 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
7809 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
7810 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
7811 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
7812 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
7813 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
7814
7815 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
7816
7817       </div>
7818       <div class="tags">
7819
7820
7821         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>.
7822
7823
7824       </div>
7825     </div>
7826     <div class="padding"></div>
7827
7828     <div class="entry">
7829       <div class="title">
7830         <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>
7831       </div>
7832       <div class="date">
7833         27th May 2010
7834       </div>
7835       <div class="body">
7836         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
7837 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
7838 issues are known and should be solved:
7839
7840 <p><ul>
7841
7842 <li>The wicd package seen to
7843 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
7844 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
7845 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
7846 seem to be on the case.</li>
7847
7848 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
7849 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
7850 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
7851 maintainer is on the case.</li>
7852
7853 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
7854 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
7855 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
7856 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
7857 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
7858 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
7859 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
7860 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
7861
7862 </ul></p>
7863
7864 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
7865 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
7866 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
7867 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
7868
7869 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7870 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7871 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
7872 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
7873
7874 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
7875
7876       </div>
7877       <div class="tags">
7878
7879
7880         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>.
7881
7882
7883       </div>
7884     </div>
7885     <div class="padding"></div>
7886
7887     <div class="entry">
7888       <div class="title">
7889         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
7890       </div>
7891       <div class="date">
7892         22nd May 2010
7893       </div>
7894       <div class="body">
7895         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
7896 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
7897 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
7898 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
7899
7900 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
7901 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
7902 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
7903 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
7904 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
7905 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
7906 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
7907 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
7908 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
7909 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
7910 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
7911 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
7912 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
7913 going to work.</p>
7914
7915 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
7916 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
7917 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
7918 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
7919 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
7920 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
7921 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
7922 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
7923 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
7924 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
7925 Edu.</p>
7926
7927 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
7928 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
7929 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
7930 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
7931 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
7932 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
7933
7934 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
7935 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
7936
7937       </div>
7938       <div class="tags">
7939
7940
7941         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>.
7942
7943
7944       </div>
7945     </div>
7946     <div class="padding"></div>
7947
7948     <div class="entry">
7949       <div class="title">
7950         <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>
7951       </div>
7952       <div class="date">
7953         14th May 2010
7954       </div>
7955       <div class="body">
7956         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
7957 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
7958 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
7959 expected, if I am to believe the
7960 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
7961 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
7962 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
7963 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
7964 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
7965 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
7966 version.</p>
7967
7968 More information about
7969 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
7970 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
7971 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
7972 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
7973
7974 <blockquote><pre>
7975 CONCURRENCY=none
7976 </pre></blockquote>
7977
7978 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7979 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7980 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
7981 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
7982
7983       </div>
7984       <div class="tags">
7985
7986
7987         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>.
7988
7989
7990       </div>
7991     </div>
7992     <div class="padding"></div>
7993
7994     <div class="entry">
7995       <div class="title">
7996         <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>
7997       </div>
7998       <div class="date">
7999         14th May 2010
8000       </div>
8001       <div class="body">
8002         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
8003 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
8004 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
8005 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
8006 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
8007 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
8008 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
8009 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
8010
8011 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
8012 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
8013 this on the collector host:</p>
8014
8015 <blockquote><pre>
8016 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
8017 </pre></blockquote>
8018
8019 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
8020 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
8021
8022 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
8023 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
8024 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
8025 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
8026 written yet.</p>
8027
8028       </div>
8029       <div class="tags">
8030
8031
8032         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>.
8033
8034
8035       </div>
8036     </div>
8037     <div class="padding"></div>
8038
8039     <div class="entry">
8040       <div class="title">
8041         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
8042       </div>
8043       <div class="date">
8044         13th May 2010
8045       </div>
8046       <div class="body">
8047         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
8048 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
8049 has been
8050 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
8051
8052 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
8053 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
8054 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
8055 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
8056 based boot system.  Tollef is
8057 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
8058 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
8059 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
8060 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
8061 at the moment do not.</p>
8062
8063 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
8064 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
8065 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
8066 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
8067 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
8068 way forward.</p>
8069
8070 <p>In the mean time, based on the
8071 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8072 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
8073 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
8074 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
8075 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
8076 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
8077 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
8078 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
8079
8080       </div>
8081       <div class="tags">
8082
8083
8084         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>.
8085
8086
8087       </div>
8088     </div>
8089     <div class="padding"></div>
8090
8091     <div class="entry">
8092       <div class="title">
8093         <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>
8094       </div>
8095       <div class="date">
8096          6th May 2010
8097       </div>
8098       <div class="body">
8099         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
8100 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
8101 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
8102 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
8103 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8104 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
8105 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8106
8107 <blockquote><pre>
8108 CONCURRENCY=makefile
8109 </pre></blockquote>
8110
8111 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
8112 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
8113 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
8114 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
8115 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
8116 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
8117 make this happen.</p>
8118
8119 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
8120 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
8121 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
8122 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
8123 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
8124
8125 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
8126 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
8127 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
8128 fix the remaining issues.</p>
8129
8130 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8131 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8132 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8133 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8134
8135       </div>
8136       <div class="tags">
8137
8138
8139         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>.
8140
8141
8142       </div>
8143     </div>
8144     <div class="padding"></div>
8145
8146     <div class="entry">
8147       <div class="title">
8148         <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>
8149       </div>
8150       <div class="date">
8151         27th July 2009
8152       </div>
8153       <div class="body">
8154         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
8155 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
8156 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
8157 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
8158 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
8159 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
8160 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
8161
8162 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
8163 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
8164 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
8165
8166       </div>
8167       <div class="tags">
8168
8169
8170         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>.
8171
8172
8173       </div>
8174     </div>
8175     <div class="padding"></div>
8176
8177     <div class="entry">
8178       <div class="title">
8179         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
8180       </div>
8181       <div class="date">
8182         22nd July 2009
8183       </div>
8184       <div class="body">
8185         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
8186 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
8187 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
8188 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
8189 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
8190 the package up to date.</p>
8191
8192 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
8193 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
8194 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
8195 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
8196 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
8197 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
8198 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
8199 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
8200 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
8201 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
8202 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
8203 working on the future release.</p>
8204
8205 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
8206 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
8207
8208       </div>
8209       <div class="tags">
8210
8211
8212         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>.
8213
8214
8215       </div>
8216     </div>
8217     <div class="padding"></div>
8218
8219     <div class="entry">
8220       <div class="title">
8221         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
8222       </div>
8223       <div class="date">
8224         24th June 2009
8225       </div>
8226       <div class="body">
8227         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
8228 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
8229 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
8230 funded
8231 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
8232 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
8233 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
8234 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
8235 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
8236 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
8237
8238 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
8239 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
8240 boot:</p>
8241
8242 <ul>
8243
8244 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
8245
8246 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
8247    clock is in UTC.</li>
8248
8249 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
8250    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8251    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
8252
8253 </ul>
8254
8255 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
8256 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
8257 Villegas</a>.
8258
8259 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
8260 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
8261 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
8262 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
8263 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
8264 using this.</p>
8265
8266 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
8267 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
8268 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
8269 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
8270 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
8271 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
8272 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
8273
8274       </div>
8275       <div class="tags">
8276
8277
8278         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>.
8279
8280
8281       </div>
8282     </div>
8283     <div class="padding"></div>
8284
8285     <div class="entry">
8286       <div class="title">
8287         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
8288       </div>
8289       <div class="date">
8290         17th May 2009
8291       </div>
8292       <div class="body">
8293         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
8294 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
8295 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
8296 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
8297 dager siden kom
8298 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
8299 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
8300 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
8301 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
8302 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
8303
8304 <blockquote>
8305 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
8306 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
8307 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
8308 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
8309 </blockquote>
8310
8311 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
8312 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
8313 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
8314 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
8315 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
8316
8317 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
8318 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
8319 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
8320
8321       </div>
8322       <div class="tags">
8323
8324
8325         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>.
8326
8327
8328       </div>
8329     </div>
8330     <div class="padding"></div>
8331
8332     <div class="entry">
8333       <div class="title">
8334         <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>
8335       </div>
8336       <div class="date">
8337          7th May 2009
8338       </div>
8339       <div class="body">
8340         <p>Kom over
8341 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
8342 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
8343 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
8344 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
8345 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
8346 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
8347 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
8348
8349       </div>
8350       <div class="tags">
8351
8352
8353         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>.
8354
8355
8356       </div>
8357     </div>
8358     <div class="padding"></div>
8359
8360     <div class="entry">
8361       <div class="title">
8362         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
8363       </div>
8364       <div class="date">
8365          2nd May 2009
8366       </div>
8367       <div class="body">
8368         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
8369 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
8370 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
8371 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
8372 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
8373 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
8374 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
8375 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
8376 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
8377 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
8378 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
8379 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
8380 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
8381 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
8382 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
8383 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
8384 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
8385 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
8386 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
8387 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
8388
8389 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
8390 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
8391 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
8392 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
8393 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
8394 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
8395 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
8396 betydelige.</p>
8397
8398       </div>
8399       <div class="tags">
8400
8401
8402         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>.
8403
8404
8405       </div>
8406     </div>
8407     <div class="padding"></div>
8408
8409     <div class="entry">
8410       <div class="title">
8411         <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>
8412       </div>
8413       <div class="date">
8414          2nd May 2009
8415       </div>
8416       <div class="body">
8417         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
8418 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
8419 do not yet know them.</p>
8420
8421 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
8422 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
8423 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
8424 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
8425 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
8426 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
8427 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
8428 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
8429 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
8430 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
8431 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
8432
8433 <p>The second one is
8434 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
8435 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
8436 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
8437 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
8438 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
8439 and the company behind it is running
8440 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
8441 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
8442 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
8443 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
8444 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
8445 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
8446 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
8447 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
8448
8449 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
8450 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
8451 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
8452 surrounded by today.</p>
8453
8454       </div>
8455       <div class="tags">
8456
8457
8458         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>.
8459
8460
8461       </div>
8462     </div>
8463     <div class="padding"></div>
8464
8465     <div class="entry">
8466       <div class="title">
8467         <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>
8468       </div>
8469       <div class="date">
8470         28th April 2009
8471       </div>
8472       <div class="body">
8473         <p>Julien Blache
8474 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
8475 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
8476 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
8477 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
8478 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
8479 properties.</p>
8480
8481       </div>
8482       <div class="tags">
8483
8484
8485         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>.
8486
8487
8488       </div>
8489     </div>
8490     <div class="padding"></div>
8491
8492     <div class="entry">
8493       <div class="title">
8494         <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>
8495       </div>
8496       <div class="date">
8497         30th March 2009
8498       </div>
8499       <div class="body">
8500         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
8501 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
8502 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
8503 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
8504 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
8505 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
8506 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
8507 application.</p>
8508
8509 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
8510 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
8511 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
8512 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
8513 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
8514 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
8515 blocked from doing so.</p>
8516
8517 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
8518 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
8519 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
8520 requirements change.</p>
8521
8522 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
8523 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
8524 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
8525
8526       </div>
8527       <div class="tags">
8528
8529
8530         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>.
8531
8532
8533       </div>
8534     </div>
8535     <div class="padding"></div>
8536
8537     <div class="entry">
8538       <div class="title">
8539         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
8540       </div>
8541       <div class="date">
8542         29th March 2009
8543       </div>
8544       <div class="body">
8545         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
8546 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
8547 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
8548 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
8549 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
8550 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
8551 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
8552 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
8553 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
8554 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
8555 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
8556 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
8557 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
8558 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
8559 now. :)</p>
8560
8561       </div>
8562       <div class="tags">
8563
8564
8565         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>.
8566
8567
8568       </div>
8569     </div>
8570     <div class="padding"></div>
8571
8572     <div class="entry">
8573       <div class="title">
8574         <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>
8575       </div>
8576       <div class="date">
8577         29th March 2009
8578       </div>
8579       <div class="body">
8580         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
8581 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
8582 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
8583 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
8584 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
8585 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
8586
8587 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
8588 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
8589 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
8590 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
8591 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
8592 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
8593 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
8594 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
8595 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
8596 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
8597 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
8598 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
8599 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
8600
8601 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
8602 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
8603 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
8604 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
8605
8606 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
8607 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
8608
8609 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
8610 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
8611 new IETF work group?</p>
8612
8613       </div>
8614       <div class="tags">
8615
8616
8617         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>.
8618
8619
8620       </div>
8621     </div>
8622     <div class="padding"></div>
8623
8624     <div class="entry">
8625       <div class="title">
8626         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
8627       </div>
8628       <div class="date">
8629         15th February 2009
8630       </div>
8631       <div class="body">
8632         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
8633 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
8634 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
8635 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
8636 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
8637 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
8638 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
8639 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
8640 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
8641 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
8642 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
8643 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
8644
8645       </div>
8646       <div class="tags">
8647
8648
8649         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>.
8650
8651
8652       </div>
8653     </div>
8654     <div class="padding"></div>
8655
8656     <div class="entry">
8657       <div class="title">
8658         <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>
8659       </div>
8660       <div class="date">
8661          7th December 2008
8662       </div>
8663       <div class="body">
8664         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
8665 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
8666 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
8667 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
8668 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
8669 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
8670 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
8671 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
8672
8673 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
8674 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
8675 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
8676 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
8677 of these cards.</p>
8678
8679       </div>
8680       <div class="tags">
8681
8682
8683         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>.
8684
8685
8686       </div>
8687     </div>
8688     <div class="padding"></div>
8689
8690     <div class="entry">
8691       <div class="title">
8692         <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>
8693       </div>
8694       <div class="date">
8695         25th November 2008
8696       </div>
8697       <div class="body">
8698         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
8699 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
8700 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
8701 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
8702 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
8703 notes are available on
8704 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
8705 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
8706 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
8707 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
8708 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
8709 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
8710 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
8711 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
8712 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
8713
8714 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
8715 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
8716
8717       </div>
8718       <div class="tags">
8719
8720
8721         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>.
8722
8723
8724       </div>
8725     </div>
8726     <div class="padding"></div>
8727
8728     <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>
8729     <div id="sidebar">
8730
8731
8732
8733 <h2>Archive</h2>
8734 <ul>
8735
8736 <li>2014
8737 <ul>
8738
8739 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
8740
8741 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
8742
8743 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
8744
8745 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
8746
8747 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
8748
8749 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
8750
8751 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
8752
8753 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
8754
8755 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
8756
8757 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (3)</a></li>
8758
8759 </ul></li>
8760
8761 <li>2013
8762 <ul>
8763
8764 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
8765
8766 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
8767
8768 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
8769
8770 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
8771
8772 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
8773
8774 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
8775
8776 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
8777
8778 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
8779
8780 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
8781
8782 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
8783
8784 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
8785
8786 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
8787
8788 </ul></li>
8789
8790 <li>2012
8791 <ul>
8792
8793 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
8794
8795 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
8796
8797 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
8798
8799 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
8800
8801 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
8802
8803 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
8804
8805 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
8806
8807 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
8808
8809 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
8810
8811 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
8812
8813 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
8814
8815 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
8816
8817 </ul></li>
8818
8819 <li>2011
8820 <ul>
8821
8822 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
8823
8824 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
8825
8826 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
8827
8828 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
8829
8830 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
8831
8832 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
8833
8834 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
8835
8836 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
8837
8838 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
8839
8840 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
8841
8842 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
8843
8844 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
8845
8846 </ul></li>
8847
8848 <li>2010
8849 <ul>
8850
8851 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
8852
8853 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
8854
8855 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
8856
8857 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
8858
8859 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
8860
8861 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
8862
8863 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
8864
8865 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
8866
8867 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
8868
8869 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
8870
8871 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
8872
8873 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
8874
8875 </ul></li>
8876
8877 <li>2009
8878 <ul>
8879
8880 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
8881
8882 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
8883
8884 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
8885
8886 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
8887
8888 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
8889
8890 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
8891
8892 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
8893
8894 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
8895
8896 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
8897
8898 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
8899
8900 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
8901
8902 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
8903
8904 </ul></li>
8905
8906 <li>2008
8907 <ul>
8908
8909 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
8910
8911 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
8912
8913 </ul></li>
8914
8915 </ul>
8916
8917
8918
8919 <h2>Tags</h2>
8920 <ul>
8921
8922  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
8923
8924  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
8925
8926  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
8927
8928  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
8929
8930  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
8931
8932  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (14)</a></li>
8933
8934  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
8935
8936  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
8937
8938  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (106)</a></li>
8939
8940  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (150)</a></li>
8941
8942  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
8943
8944  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
8945
8946  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (12)</a></li>
8947
8948  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
8949
8950  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (258)</a></li>
8951
8952  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
8953
8954  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
8955
8956  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (13)</a></li>
8957
8958  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (8)</a></li>
8959
8960  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
8961
8962  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (41)</a></li>
8963
8964  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (10)</a></li>
8965
8966  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
8967
8968  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
8969
8970  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
8971
8972  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
8973
8974  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
8975
8976  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
8977
8978  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (31)</a></li>
8979
8980  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (248)</a></li>
8981
8982  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (162)</a></li>
8983
8984  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (11)</a></li>
8985
8986  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
8987
8988  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (48)</a></li>
8989
8990  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (75)</a></li>
8991
8992  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
8993
8994  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
8995
8996  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
8997
8998  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
8999
9000  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
9001
9002  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
9003
9004  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
9005
9006  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
9007
9008  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
9009
9010  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
9011
9012  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
9013
9014  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (45)</a></li>
9015
9016  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
9017
9018  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
9019
9020  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (26)</a></li>
9021
9022  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
9023
9024  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
9025
9026  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (43)</a></li>
9027
9028  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
9029
9030  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (33)</a></li>
9031
9032 </ul>
9033
9034
9035     </div>
9036     <p style="text-align: right">
9037  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
9038 </p>
9039
9040   </body>
9041 </html>