blog/tags/debian/index.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   2           "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
   3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr">
   4   <head>
   5     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Entries Tagged debian</title>
   7     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/style.css" />
   8     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/vim.css" />
   9     <link rel="alternate" title="RSS Feed" href="debian.rss" type="application/rss+xml" />
  10   </head>
  11   <body>
  12     <div class="title">
  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/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         15th January 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
  32 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
  33 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
  34 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
  35 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
  36 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
  37 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
  38 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
  39 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
  40 packages.</p>
  41
  42 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
  43 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
  44 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
  45 modalias.</p>
  46
  47 <p><blockquote>
  48 Package: package-name
  49 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
  50 </blockquote></p>
  51
  52 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
  53 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
  54
  55 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
  56 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
  57
  58 <p><blockquote>
  59 Package: cheese
  60 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
  61 </blockquote></p>
  62
  63 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
  64 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
  65
  66 <p><blockquote>
  67 Package: pcmciautils
  68 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
  69 </blockquote></p>
  70
  71 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
  72 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
  73
  74 <p><blockquote>
  75 Package: colorhug-client
  76 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
  77 </blockquote></p>
  78
  79 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
  80 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
  81 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
  82
  83 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
  84 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
  85 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
  86 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
  87 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
  88 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
  89 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
  90 Raring.</p>
  91
  92 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
  93 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
  94 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
  95 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
  96 try the
  97 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
  98 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
  99 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
 100 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
 101
 102 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
 103 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
 104
 105 <p><blockquote>
 106 % ./hw-support-lookup
 107 <br>yubikey-personalization
 108 <br>%
 109 </blockquote></p>
 110
 111 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
 112 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
 113
 114 <p><blockquote>
 115 % ./hw-support-lookup
 116 <br>pcmciautils
 117 <br>%
 118 </blockquote></p>
 119
 120 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
 121 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
 122 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
 123
 124 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
 125 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
 126 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
 127 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
 128 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
 129 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
 130 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
 131 see if it work.</p>
 132
 133 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
 134 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
 135 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
 136 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
 137
 138       </div>
 139       <div class="tags">
 140
 141
 142         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>.
 143
 144
 145       </div>
 146     </div>
 147     <div class="padding"></div>
 148
 149     <div class="entry">
 150       <div class="title">
 151         <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>
 152       </div>
 153       <div class="date">
 154         14th January 2013
 155       </div>
 156       <div class="body">
 157         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
 158 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
 159 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
 160 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
 161 in
 162 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
 163 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
 164
 165 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
 166
 167 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
 168 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
 169 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
 170 &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;,
 171 &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
 172 &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;.
 173
 174 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
 175 this shell script:</p>
 176
 177 <pre>
 178 cat $(find /sys -name modalias) | sort -u
 179 </pre>
 180
 181 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
 182 using modinfo:</p>
 183
 184 <pre>
 185 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
 186 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
 187 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
 188 %
 189 </pre>
 190
 191 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
 192
 193 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
 194 Bridge memory controller:</p>
 195
 196 <p><blockquote>
 197 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
 198 </blockquote></p>
 199
 200 <p>This represent these values:</p>
 201
 202 <pre>
 203  v   00008086  (vendor)
 204  d   00002770  (device)
 205  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
 206  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
 207  bc  06        (bus class)
 208  sc  00        (bus subclass)
 209  i   00        (interface)
 210 </pre>
 211
 212 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
 213 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
 214 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
 215 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
 216
 217 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
 218 means.</p>
 219
 220 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
 221
 222 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
 223 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
 224
 225 <p><blockquote>
 226 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
 227 </blockquote></p>
 228
 229 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
 230
 231 <pre>
 232  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
 233  p    0001  (device product)
 234  d    0206  (bcddevice)
 235  dc     09  (device class)
 236  dsc    00  (device subclass)
 237  dp     00  (device protocol)
 238  ic     09  (interface class)
 239  isc    00  (interface subclass)
 240  ip     00  (interface protocol)
 241 </pre>
 242
 243 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
 244 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
 245 these alias entries show up:</p>
 246
 247 <p><blockquote>
 248 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
 249 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
 250 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
 251 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
 252 </blockquote></p>
 253
 254 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
 255 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
 256 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
 257
 258 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
 259
 260 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
 261 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
 262
 263 <p><blockquote>
 264 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
 265 </blockquote></p>
 266
 267 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
 268
 269 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
 270
 271 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
 272 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
 273 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
 274
 275 <p><blockquote>
 276 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
 277 </blockquote></p>
 278
 279 <p>The values present are</p>
 280
 281 <pre>
 282  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
 283  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
 284  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
 285  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
 286  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
 287  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
 288  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
 289  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
 290  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
 291  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
 292  ct   10             (chassis type)
 293  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
 294 </pre>
 295
 296 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
 297 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
 298
 299 <pre>
 300   3 Desktop
 301   4 Low Profile Desktop
 302   5 Pizza Box
 303   6 Mini Tower
 304   7 Tower
 305   8 Portable
 306   9 Laptop
 307  10 Notebook
 308  11 Hand Held
 309  12 Docking Station
 310  13 All In One
 311  14 Sub Notebook
 312  15 Space-saving
 313  16 Lunch Box
 314  17 Main Server Chassis
 315  18 Expansion Chassis
 316  19 Sub Chassis
 317  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
 318  21 Peripheral Chassis
 319  22 RAID Chassis
 320  23 Rack Mount Chassis
 321  24 Sealed-case PC
 322  25 Multi-system
 323  26 CompactPCI
 324  27 AdvancedTCA
 325  28 Blade
 326  29 Blade Enclosing
 327 </pre>
 328
 329 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
 330 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
 331 claim it is a desktop.</p>
 332
 333 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
 334
 335 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
 336 test machine:</p>
 337
 338 <p><blockquote>
 339 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
 340 </blockquote></p>
 341
 342 <p>The values present are</p>
 343
 344 <pre>
 345   ty  01  (type)
 346   pr  00  (prototype)
 347   id  00  (id)
 348   ex  00  (extra)
 349 </pre>
 350
 351 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
 352 the valid values are.</p>
 353
 354 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
 355
 356 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
 357 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
 358 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
 359 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
 360 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
 361 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
 362 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
 363
 364 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
 365
 366 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
 367 one can use the following shell script:</p>
 368
 369 <pre>
 370   for id in $(cat $(find /sys -name modalias)|sort -u); do \
 371     echo "$id" ; \
 372     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
 373   done
 374 </pre>
 375
 376 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
 377 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
 378
 379 <pre>
 380   acpi:ACPI0003:
 381     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
 382   acpi:device:
 383   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
 384   acpi:IBM0068:
 385     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
 386     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
 387     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
 388     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
 389   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
 390     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
 391     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
 392     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
 393   [...]
 394 </pre>
 395
 396 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
 397 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
 398 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
 399 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
 400
 401       </div>
 402       <div class="tags">
 403
 404
 405         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>.
 406
 407
 408       </div>
 409     </div>
 410     <div class="padding"></div>
 411
 412     <div class="entry">
 413       <div class="title">
 414         <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>
 415       </div>
 416       <div class="date">
 417         10th January 2013
 418       </div>
 419       <div class="body">
 420         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
 421 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
 422 Launcher and updated the Debian package
 423 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
 424 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
 425 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
 426 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
 427 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
 428 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
 429 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
 430 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
 431 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
 432 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
 433 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
 434 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
 435 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
 436 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
 437 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
 438
 439       </div>
 440       <div class="tags">
 441
 442
 443         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>.
 444
 445
 446       </div>
 447     </div>
 448     <div class="padding"></div>
 449
 450     <div class="entry">
 451       <div class="title">
 452         <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>
 453       </div>
 454       <div class="date">
 455          9th January 2013
 456       </div>
 457       <div class="body">
 458         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
 459 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
 460 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
 461 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
 462 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
 463 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
 464 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
 465 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
 466 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
 467 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
 468 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
 469
 470 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
 471 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
 472 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
 473 simple:
 474
 475 <ul>
 476
 477 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
 478   starting when a user log in.</li>
 479
 480 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
 481   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
 482
 483 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
 484   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
 485   packages.</li>
 486
 487 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
 488   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
 489
 490 </ul>
 491
 492 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
 493 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
 494 discover database to find packages and
 495 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
 496 packages.</p>
 497
 498 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
 499 draft package is now checked into
 500 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
 501 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
 502 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
 503 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
 504 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
 505 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
 506 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
 507 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
 508 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
 509 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
 510 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
 511 because of the freeze).</p>
 512
 513 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
 514 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
 515 inserted):</p>
 516
 517 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
 518
 519 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
 520 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
 521 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
 522
 523 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
 524 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
 525 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
 526 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
 527 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
 528 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
 529 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
 530
 531 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
 532 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
 533 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
 534 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
 535 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
 536 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
 537 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
 538 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
 539 not be installed?</p>
 540
 541 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
 542 please send me an email. :)</p>
 543
 544       </div>
 545       <div class="tags">
 546
 547
 548         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>.
 549
 550
 551       </div>
 552     </div>
 553     <div class="padding"></div>
 554
 555     <div class="entry">
 556       <div class="title">
 557         <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>
 558       </div>
 559       <div class="date">
 560          2nd January 2013
 561       </div>
 562       <div class="body">
 563         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
 564 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
 565 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
 566 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
 567 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
 568 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
 569 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
 570 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
 571 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
 572 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
 573
 574 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
 575 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
 576 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
 577
 578       </div>
 579       <div class="tags">
 580
 581
 582         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>.
 583
 584
 585       </div>
 586     </div>
 587     <div class="padding"></div>
 588
 589     <div class="entry">
 590       <div class="title">
 591         <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>
 592       </div>
 593       <div class="date">
 594         25th December 2012
 595       </div>
 596       <div class="body">
 597         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
 598 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
 599
 600 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
 601 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
 602 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
 603 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
 604 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
 605 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
 606 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
 607 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
 608 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
 609 name.</p>
 610
 611 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
 612 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
 613 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
 614
 615 <blockquote><pre>
 616 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
 617 cd bitcoin
 618 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
 619 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
 620 </pre></blockquote>
 621
 622 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
 623 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
 624 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
 625 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
 626 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
 627 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
 628 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
 629 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
 630 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
 631
 632 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 633 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 634 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 635
 636       </div>
 637       <div class="tags">
 638
 639
 640         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>.
 641
 642
 643       </div>
 644     </div>
 645     <div class="padding"></div>
 646
 647     <div class="entry">
 648       <div class="title">
 649         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
 650       </div>
 651       <div class="date">
 652         21st December 2012
 653       </div>
 654       <div class="body">
 655         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
 656 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
 657 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
 658 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
 659 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
 660 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
 661 is now maintained by a
 662 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
 663 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
 664 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
 665 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
 666 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
 667 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
 668 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
 669 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
 670 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
 671 Corallo in a
 672 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
 673 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
 674 Debian package.</p>
 675
 676 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
 677 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
 678 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
 679 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
 680 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
 681 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
 682 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
 683 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
 684 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
 685 new version to unstable.
 686
 687 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
 688 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
 689 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
 690 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
 691 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
 692 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
 693 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
 694 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
 695 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
 696 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
 697 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
 698 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
 699 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
 700 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
 701 have not tested them.</p>
 702
 703 <p>My
 704 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
 705 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
 706 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
 707 years ago, as can be
 708 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
 709 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
 710 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
 711 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
 712 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
 713 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
 714 the same address as last time,
 715 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 716
 717       </div>
 718       <div class="tags">
 719
 720
 721         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>.
 722
 723
 724       </div>
 725     </div>
 726     <div class="padding"></div>
 727
 728     <div class="entry">
 729       <div class="title">
 730         <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>
 731       </div>
 732       <div class="date">
 733          7th September 2012
 734       </div>
 735       <div class="body">
 736         <p>As I
 737 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
 738 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
 739 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
 740 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
 741 repository for the project</a>.</p>
 742
 743 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
 744 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
 745 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
 746 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
 747
 748 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
 749 PostScript formats at
 750 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
 751 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
 752
 753       </div>
 754       <div class="tags">
 755
 756
 757         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>.
 758
 759
 760       </div>
 761     </div>
 762     <div class="padding"></div>
 763
 764     <div class="entry">
 765       <div class="title">
 766         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
 767       </div>
 768       <div class="date">
 769         16th August 2012
 770       </div>
 771       <div class="body">
 772         <p>I dag fyller
 773 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
 774 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
 775 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
 776
 777       </div>
 778       <div class="tags">
 779
 780
 781         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>.
 782
 783
 784       </div>
 785     </div>
 786     <div class="padding"></div>
 787
 788     <div class="entry">
 789       <div class="title">
 790         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
 791       </div>
 792       <div class="date">
 793         24th June 2012
 794       </div>
 795       <div class="body">
 796         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
 797 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
 798 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
 799 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
 800 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
 801 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
 802 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
 803 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
 804 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
 805 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
 806 missing in my book.</p>
 807
 808 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
 809 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
 810 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
 811 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
 812 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
 813 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
 814 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
 815
 816       </div>
 817       <div class="tags">
 818
 819
 820         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>.
 821
 822
 823       </div>
 824     </div>
 825     <div class="padding"></div>
 826
 827     <div class="entry">
 828       <div class="title">
 829         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
 830       </div>
 831       <div class="date">
 832         21st November 2011
 833       </div>
 834       <div class="body">
 835         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
 836 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
 837 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
 838 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
 839 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
 840 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
 841 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
 842 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
 843 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
 844 the tools to do so.</p>
 845
 846 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
 847 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
 848 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
 849 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
 850
 851 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
 852 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
 853 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
 854 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
 855 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
 856 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
 857 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
 858 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
 859
 860 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
 861 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
 862 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
 863
 864 <p><pre>
 865 #!/usr/bin/perl
 866 use strict;
 867 use warnings;
 868 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
 869 BEGIN {
 870     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
 871     my %rhelmodules = (
 872         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
 873         );
 874     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
 875         eval "use $module;";
 876         if ($@) {
 877             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
 878             system("yum install -y $pkg");
 879             eval "use $module;";
 880         }
 881     }
 882 }
 883 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
 884
 885 upgrade_dell();
 886
 887 exit 0;
 888
 889 sub run_firmware_script {
 890     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
 891     unless ($script) {
 892         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
 893         exit 1
 894     }
 895     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
 896
 897     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
 898         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
 899     } else {
 900         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
 901     }
 902 }
 903
 904 sub run_firmware_scripts {
 905     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
 906     # Run firmware packages
 907     for my $dir (@dirs) {
 908         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
 909         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
 910         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
 911             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
 912             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
 913         }
 914         closedir $dh;
 915     }
 916 }
 917
 918 sub download {
 919     my $url = shift;
 920     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
 921     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
 922 }
 923
 924 sub upgrade_dell {
 925     my @dirs;
 926     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
 927     chomp $product;
 928
 929     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
 930
 931         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
 932         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
 933
 934         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
 935             CLEANUP => 1
 936             );
 937         chdir($tmpdir);
 938         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
 939         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
 940         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
 941         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
 942         my $fwopts = "-q";
 943         if (@paths) {
 944             for my $url (@paths) {
 945                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
 946             }
 947             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
 948         } else {
 949             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
 950             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
 951         }
 952         chdir('/');
 953     } else {
 954         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
 955         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
 956     }
 957 }
 958
 959 sub fetch_dell_fw {
 960     my $path = shift;
 961     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
 962     download($url);
 963 }
 964
 965 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
 966 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
 967 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
 968 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
 969     my $filename = shift;
 970
 971     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
 972     chomp $product;
 973     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
 974
 975     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
 976
 977     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
 978     my @paths;
 979     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
 980         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
 981         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
 982         my $oscode;
 983         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
 984             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
 985         } else {
 986             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
 987         }
 988         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
 989         {
 990             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
 991         }
 992     }
 993     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
 994         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
 995
 996         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
 997         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
 998
 999         my $cpath = $component->{path};
1000         for my $path (@paths) {
1001             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
1002                 push(@paths, $cpath);
1003             }
1004         }
1005     }
1006     return @paths;
1007 }
1008 </pre>
1009
1010 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
1011 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
1012 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
1013 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
1014 outdated.</p>
1015
1016       </div>
1017       <div class="tags">
1018
1019
1020         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1021
1022
1023       </div>
1024     </div>
1025     <div class="padding"></div>
1026
1027     <div class="entry">
1028       <div class="title">
1029         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</a>
1030       </div>
1031       <div class="date">
1032          4th August 2011
1033       </div>
1034       <div class="body">
1035         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
1036 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
1037 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
1038 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
1039 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
1040 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
1041 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
1042 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
1043 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
1044
1045 <p><blockquote>
1046 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
1047 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
1048 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
1049 </blockquote></p>
1050
1051 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
1052 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
1053 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
1054 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
1055 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
1056 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
1057 hard to explain.</p>
1058
1059 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
1060 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
1061 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
1062 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
1063 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
1064 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
1065 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
1066 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
1067 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
1068 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
1069 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
1070 mode).</p>
1071
1072 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
1073 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
1074 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
1075 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
1076 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
1077 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
1078 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
1079 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
1080 after visiting single user mode.</p>
1081
1082 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
1083 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
1084 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
1085 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
1086 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
1087 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
1088 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
1089 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
1090
1091 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
1092 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
1093 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
1094
1095       </div>
1096       <div class="tags">
1097
1098
1099         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>.
1100
1101
1102       </div>
1103     </div>
1104     <div class="padding"></div>
1105
1106     <div class="entry">
1107       <div class="title">
1108         <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>
1109       </div>
1110       <div class="date">
1111         30th July 2011
1112       </div>
1113       <div class="body">
1114         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
1115 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
1116 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
1117 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
1118 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
1119 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
1120 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
1121 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
1122 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
1123 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
1124 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
1125 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
1126 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
1127
1128 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
1129 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
1130 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
1131 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
1132 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
1133 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
1134 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
1135 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
1136 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
1137
1138 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
1139 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
1140 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
1141 is presented.</p>
1142
1143 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
1144 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
1145 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
1146 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
1147 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
1148 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
1149 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
1150 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
1151 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
1152 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
1153 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
1154 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
1155 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
1156 find time to push this forward.</p>
1157
1158       </div>
1159       <div class="tags">
1160
1161
1162         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>.
1163
1164
1165       </div>
1166     </div>
1167     <div class="padding"></div>
1168
1169     <div class="entry">
1170       <div class="title">
1171         <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>
1172       </div>
1173       <div class="date">
1174         29th July 2011
1175       </div>
1176       <div class="body">
1177         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
1178 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
1179 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
1180 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
1181 issues.</p>
1182
1183 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
1184 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
1185 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
1186
1187 <ol>
1188
1189 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
1190 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
1191 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
1192 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
1193 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
1194 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
1195 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
1196 Debian.</li>
1197
1198 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
1199 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
1200 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
1201 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
1202 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
1203 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
1204 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
1205 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
1206 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
1207 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
1208 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
1209 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
1210 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
1211
1212 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
1213 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
1214 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
1215 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
1216 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
1217 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
1218 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
1219 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
1220 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
1221 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
1222
1223 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
1224 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
1225 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
1226 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
1227 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
1228 latter behaviour.</li>
1229
1230 </ol>
1231
1232 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
1233 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
1234 it do not matter much.</p>
1235
1236 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
1237 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
1238 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
1239
1240       </div>
1241       <div class="tags">
1242
1243
1244         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>.
1245
1246
1247       </div>
1248     </div>
1249     <div class="padding"></div>
1250
1251     <div class="entry">
1252       <div class="title">
1253         <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>
1254       </div>
1255       <div class="date">
1256         26th July 2011
1257       </div>
1258       <div class="body">
1259         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
1260 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
1261 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
1262 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
1263 security support for a few years.</p>
1264
1265 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
1266 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
1267 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
1268 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
1269 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
1270 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
1271 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
1272 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
1273 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
1274 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
1275 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
1276 easier in the future.</p>
1277
1278 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
1279 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
1280 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
1281 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
1282 do not have time for.</p>
1283
1284       </div>
1285       <div class="tags">
1286
1287
1288         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>.
1289
1290
1291       </div>
1292     </div>
1293     <div class="padding"></div>
1294
1295     <div class="entry">
1296       <div class="title">
1297         <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>
1298       </div>
1299       <div class="date">
1300          3rd April 2011
1301       </div>
1302       <div class="body">
1303         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
1304 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
1305 update in English.</p>
1306
1307 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
1308 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
1309 of the British service
1310 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
1311 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
1312 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
1313 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
1314 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
1315 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
1316 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
1317 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
1318 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
1319 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
1320 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
1321 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
1322 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
1323
1324 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
1325 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
1326 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
1327 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
1328 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
1329 public infrastructure.</p>
1330
1331 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
1332 such service?</p>
1333
1334       </div>
1335       <div class="tags">
1336
1337
1338         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>.
1339
1340
1341       </div>
1342     </div>
1343     <div class="padding"></div>
1344
1345     <div class="entry">
1346       <div class="title">
1347         <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>
1348       </div>
1349       <div class="date">
1350         28th January 2011
1351       </div>
1352       <div class="body">
1353         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
1354 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
1355 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
1356 available on the Internet, and check our locally
1357 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
1358 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
1359 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
1360 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
1361 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
1362 out which security holes were present in our free software
1363 collection.</p>
1364
1365 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
1366 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
1367 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
1368 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
1369 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
1370 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
1371 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
1372 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
1373 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
1374 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
1375 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
1376 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
1377 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
1378 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
1379 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
1380 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
1381
1382 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
1383 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
1384 check out, one could look up
1385 <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
1386 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
1387 The most recent one is
1388 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
1389 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
1390 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
1391
1392 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
1393 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
1394 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
1395 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
1396 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
1397 security issues out.</p>
1398
1399 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
1400 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
1401 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
1402 RHEL is providing
1403 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
1404 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
1405 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
1406
1407 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
1408 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
1409 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
1410 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
1411 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
1412 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
1413 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
1414 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
1415 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
1416 established soon.</p>
1417
1418 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
1419 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
1420 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
1421 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
1422 for their packages.</p>
1423
1424       </div>
1425       <div class="tags">
1426
1427
1428         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>.
1429
1430
1431       </div>
1432     </div>
1433     <div class="padding"></div>
1434
1435     <div class="entry">
1436       <div class="title">
1437         <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>
1438       </div>
1439       <div class="date">
1440         23rd January 2011
1441       </div>
1442       <div class="body">
1443         <p>In the
1444 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
1445 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
1446 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
1447 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
1448 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
1449 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
1450 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
1451 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
1452 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
1453 one of my machines like this:</p>
1454
1455 <pre>
1456 loaded modules:
1457 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
1458 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
1459 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
1460 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
1461 10de:03ec pata_amd
1462 10de:03f6 sata_nv
1463 1022:1103 k8temp
1464 109e:036e bttv
1465 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
1466 11ab:4364 sky2
1467 </pre>
1468
1469 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
1470 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
1471
1472 <pre>
1473 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
1474     echo loaded pci modules:
1475     (
1476         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
1477         for address in * ; do
1478             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
1479                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
1480                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
1481                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
1482                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
1483                     echo "$id $module"
1484                 fi
1485             fi
1486         done
1487     )
1488     echo
1489 fi
1490 </pre>
1491
1492 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
1493 mappings:</p>
1494
1495 <pre>
1496 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
1497     echo loaded usb modules:
1498     (
1499         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
1500         for address in * ; do
1501             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
1502                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
1503                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
1504                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
1505                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
1506                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
1507                         echo "$id $module"
1508                     fi
1509                 fi
1510             fi
1511         done
1512     )
1513     echo
1514 fi
1515 </pre>
1516
1517 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
1518 well.</p>
1519
1520       </div>
1521       <div class="tags">
1522
1523
1524         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>.
1525
1526
1527       </div>
1528     </div>
1529     <div class="padding"></div>
1530
1531     <div class="entry">
1532       <div class="title">
1533         <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>
1534       </div>
1535       <div class="date">
1536         22nd December 2010
1537       </div>
1538       <div class="body">
1539         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
1540 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
1541 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
1542 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
1543 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
1544 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
1545 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
1546 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
1547 university.</p>
1548
1549 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
1550 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
1551 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
1552 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
1553 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
1554 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
1555 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
1556 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
1557
1558 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
1559 I perform on a new model.</p>
1560
1561 <ul>
1562
1563 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
1564 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
1565 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
1566
1567 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
1568 installation, X.org is working.</li>
1569
1570 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
1571 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
1572 reported by the program.</li>
1573
1574 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
1575 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
1576 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
1577 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
1578 normally test this by playing
1579 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
1580 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
1581
1582 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
1583 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
1584
1585 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
1586 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
1587
1588 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
1589 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
1590
1591 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
1592 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
1593 few.</li>
1594
1595 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
1596 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
1597 notice this.</li>
1598
1599 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
1600 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
1601 resume.</li>
1602
1603 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
1604 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
1605 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
1606 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
1607 not.</li>
1608
1609 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
1610 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
1611 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
1612 existence.</li>
1613
1614 </ul>
1615
1616 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
1617 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
1618 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
1619 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
1620 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
1621 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
1622 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
1623 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
1624
1625       </div>
1626       <div class="tags">
1627
1628
1629         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>.
1630
1631
1632       </div>
1633     </div>
1634     <div class="padding"></div>
1635
1636     <div class="entry">
1637       <div class="title">
1638         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
1639       </div>
1640       <div class="date">
1641         11th December 2010
1642       </div>
1643       <div class="body">
1644         <p>As I continue to explore
1645 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
1646 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
1647 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
1648
1649 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
1650 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
1651 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
1652 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
1653 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
1654 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
1655 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
1656 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
1657 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
1658 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
1659 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
1660 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
1661 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
1662 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
1663 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
1664 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
1665 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
1666 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
1667 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
1668 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
1669
1670 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
1671 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
1672 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
1673 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
1674 If the Skolelinux foundation
1675 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
1676 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
1677 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
1678 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
1679 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
1680 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
1681 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
1682 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
1683
1684 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
1685 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
1686 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
1687 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
1688 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
1689 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
1690 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
1691 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
1692 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
1693 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
1694 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
1695 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
1696 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
1697 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
1698 currencies.</p>
1699
1700 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
1701 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
1702 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
1703 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
1704 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
1705 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
1706 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
1707 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
1708 BitCoins.  Check out
1709 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
1710 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
1711 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
1712 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
1713 yet.</p>
1714
1715 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
1716 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
1717 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
1718 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
1719 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
1720
1721       </div>
1722       <div class="tags">
1723
1724
1725         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>.
1726
1727
1728       </div>
1729     </div>
1730     <div class="padding"></div>
1731
1732     <div class="entry">
1733       <div class="title">
1734         <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>
1735       </div>
1736       <div class="date">
1737         10th December 2010
1738       </div>
1739       <div class="body">
1740         <p>With this weeks lawless
1741 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
1742 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
1743 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
1744 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
1745 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
1746 A blog post from
1747 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
1748 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
1749 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
1750 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
1751 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
1752 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
1753 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
1754
1755 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
1756 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
1757 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
1758 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
1759 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
1760 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
1761 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
1762 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
1763 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
1764 Debian</a> soon.</p>
1765
1766 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
1767 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
1768 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
1769 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
1770 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
1771 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
1772 you can even get
1773 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
1774 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
1775 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
1776 on the current exchange rates.</p>
1777
1778 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
1779 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
1780 donations to the address
1781 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
1782
1783       </div>
1784       <div class="tags">
1785
1786
1787         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>.
1788
1789
1790       </div>
1791     </div>
1792     <div class="padding"></div>
1793
1794     <div class="entry">
1795       <div class="title">
1796         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
1797       </div>
1798       <div class="date">
1799         27th November 2010
1800       </div>
1801       <div class="body">
1802         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
1803 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
1804 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
1805 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
1806 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
1807 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
1808 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
1809 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
1810
1811 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
1812 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
1813 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
1814 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
1815 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
1816 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
1817 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
1818 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
1819 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
1820 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
1821 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
1822
1823 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
1824 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
1825 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
1826 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
1827 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
1828 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
1829 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
1830 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
1831 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
1832 what is going on.</p>
1833
1834       </div>
1835       <div class="tags">
1836
1837
1838         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>.
1839
1840
1841       </div>
1842     </div>
1843     <div class="padding"></div>
1844
1845     <div class="entry">
1846       <div class="title">
1847         <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>
1848       </div>
1849       <div class="date">
1850         22nd November 2010
1851       </div>
1852       <div class="body">
1853         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
1854 upgrade testing of the
1855 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
1856 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
1857 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
1858 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
1859
1860 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
1861
1862 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
1863
1864 <blockquote><p>
1865   apache2.2-bin
1866   aptdaemon
1867   baobab
1868   binfmt-support
1869   browser-plugin-gnash
1870   cheese-common
1871   cli-common
1872   cups-pk-helper
1873   dmz-cursor-theme
1874   empathy
1875   empathy-common
1876   freedesktop-sound-theme
1877   freeglut3
1878   gconf-defaults-service
1879   gdm-themes
1880   gedit-plugins
1881   geoclue
1882   geoclue-hostip
1883   geoclue-localnet
1884   geoclue-manual
1885   geoclue-yahoo
1886   gnash
1887   gnash-common
1888   gnome
1889   gnome-backgrounds
1890   gnome-cards-data
1891   gnome-codec-install
1892   gnome-core
1893   gnome-desktop-environment
1894   gnome-disk-utility
1895   gnome-screenshot
1896   gnome-search-tool
1897   gnome-session-canberra
1898   gnome-system-log
1899   gnome-themes-extras
1900   gnome-themes-more
1901   gnome-user-share
1902   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
1903   gstreamer0.10-tools
1904   gtk2-engines
1905   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
1906   gtk2-engines-smooth
1907   hamster-applet
1908   libapache2-mod-dnssd
1909   libapr1
1910   libaprutil1
1911   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
1912   libaprutil1-ldap
1913   libart2.0-cil
1914   libboost-date-time1.42.0
1915   libboost-python1.42.0
1916   libboost-thread1.42.0
1917   libchamplain-0.4-0
1918   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
1919   libcheese-gtk18
1920   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
1921   libcryptui0
1922   libdiscid0
1923   libelf1
1924   libepc-1.0-2
1925   libepc-common
1926   libepc-ui-1.0-2
1927   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
1928   libfreerdp0
1929   libgconf2.0-cil
1930   libgdata-common
1931   libgdata7
1932   libgdu-gtk0
1933   libgee2
1934   libgeoclue0
1935   libgexiv2-0
1936   libgif4
1937   libglade2.0-cil
1938   libglib2.0-cil
1939   libgmime2.4-cil
1940   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
1941   libgnome2.24-cil
1942   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
1943   libgpod-common
1944   libgpod4
1945   libgtk2.0-cil
1946   libgtkglext1
1947   libgtksourceview2.0-common
1948   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
1949   libmono-addins0.2-cil
1950   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
1951   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
1952   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
1953   libmono-posix2.0-cil
1954   libmono-security2.0-cil
1955   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
1956   libmono-system2.0-cil
1957   libmtp8
1958   libmusicbrainz3-6
1959   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
1960   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
1961   libopal3.6.8
1962   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
1963   libpt2.6.7
1964   libpython2.6
1965   librpm1
1966   librpmio1
1967   libsdl1.2debian
1968   libsrtp0
1969   libssh-4
1970   libtelepathy-farsight0
1971   libtelepathy-glib0
1972   libtidy-0.99-0
1973   media-player-info
1974   mesa-utils
1975   mono-2.0-gac
1976   mono-gac
1977   mono-runtime
1978   nautilus-sendto
1979   nautilus-sendto-empathy
1980   p7zip-full
1981   pkg-config
1982   python-aptdaemon
1983   python-aptdaemon-gtk
1984   python-axiom
1985   python-beautifulsoup
1986   python-bugbuddy
1987   python-clientform
1988   python-coherence
1989   python-configobj
1990   python-crypto
1991   python-cupshelpers
1992   python-elementtree
1993   python-epsilon
1994   python-evolution
1995   python-feedparser
1996   python-gdata
1997   python-gdbm
1998   python-gst0.10
1999   python-gtkglext1
2000   python-gtksourceview2
2001   python-httplib2
2002   python-louie
2003   python-mako
2004   python-markupsafe
2005   python-mechanize
2006   python-nevow
2007   python-notify
2008   python-opengl
2009   python-openssl
2010   python-pam
2011   python-pkg-resources
2012   python-pyasn1
2013   python-pysqlite2
2014   python-rdflib
2015   python-serial
2016   python-tagpy
2017   python-twisted-bin
2018   python-twisted-conch
2019   python-twisted-core
2020   python-twisted-web
2021   python-utidylib
2022   python-webkit
2023   python-xdg
2024   python-zope.interface
2025   remmina
2026   remmina-plugin-data
2027   remmina-plugin-rdp
2028   remmina-plugin-vnc
2029   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
2030   rhythmbox-plugins
2031   rpm-common
2032   rpm2cpio
2033   seahorse-plugins
2034   shotwell
2035   software-center
2036   system-config-printer-udev
2037   telepathy-gabble
2038   telepathy-mission-control-5
2039   telepathy-salut
2040   tomboy
2041   totem
2042   totem-coherence
2043   totem-mozilla
2044   totem-plugins
2045   transmission-common
2046   xdg-user-dirs
2047   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
2048   xserver-xephyr
2049 </p></blockquote>
2050
2051 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
2052
2053 <blockquote><p>
2054   cheese
2055   ekiga
2056   eog
2057   epiphany-extensions
2058   evolution-exchange
2059   fast-user-switch-applet
2060   file-roller
2061   gcalctool
2062   gconf-editor
2063   gdm
2064   gedit
2065   gedit-common
2066   gnome-games
2067   gnome-games-data
2068   gnome-nettool
2069   gnome-system-tools
2070   gnome-themes
2071   gnuchess
2072   gucharmap
2073   guile-1.8-libs
2074   libavahi-ui0
2075   libdmx1
2076   libgalago3
2077   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
2078   libgtksourceview2.0-0
2079   liblircclient0
2080   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
2081   libspeexdsp1
2082   libsvga1
2083   rhythmbox
2084   seahorse
2085   sound-juicer
2086   system-config-printer
2087   totem-common
2088   transmission-gtk
2089   vinagre
2090   vino
2091 </p></blockquote>
2092
2093 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
2094
2095 <blockquote><p>
2096   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
2097 </p></blockquote>
2098
2099 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
2100
2101 <blockquote><p>
2102 [nothing]
2103 </p></blockquote>
2104
2105 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
2106
2107 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
2108
2109 <blockquote><p>
2110   ksmserver
2111 </p></blockquote>
2112
2113 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
2114
2115 <blockquote><p>
2116   kwin
2117   network-manager-kde
2118 </p></blockquote>
2119
2120 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
2121
2122 <blockquote><p>
2123   arts
2124   dolphin
2125   freespacenotifier
2126   google-gadgets-gst
2127   google-gadgets-xul
2128   kappfinder
2129   kcalc
2130   kcharselect
2131   kde-core
2132   kde-plasma-desktop
2133   kde-standard
2134   kde-window-manager
2135   kdeartwork
2136   kdeartwork-emoticons
2137   kdeartwork-style
2138   kdeartwork-theme-icon
2139   kdebase
2140   kdebase-apps
2141   kdebase-workspace
2142   kdebase-workspace-bin
2143   kdebase-workspace-data
2144   kdeeject
2145   kdelibs
2146   kdeplasma-addons
2147   kdeutils
2148   kdewallpapers
2149   kdf
2150   kfloppy
2151   kgpg
2152   khelpcenter4
2153   kinfocenter
2154   konq-plugins-l10n
2155   konqueror-nsplugins
2156   kscreensaver
2157   kscreensaver-xsavers
2158   ktimer
2159   kwrite
2160   libgle3
2161   libkde4-ruby1.8
2162   libkonq5
2163   libkonq5-templates
2164   libnetpbm10
2165   libplasma-ruby
2166   libplasma-ruby1.8
2167   libqt4-ruby1.8
2168   marble-data
2169   marble-plugins
2170   netpbm
2171   nuvola-icon-theme
2172   plasma-dataengines-workspace
2173   plasma-desktop
2174   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
2175   plasma-runners-addons
2176   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
2177   plasma-scriptengine-python
2178   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
2179   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
2180   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
2181   plasma-scriptengines
2182   plasma-wallpapers-addons
2183   plasma-widget-folderview
2184   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
2185   ruby
2186   sweeper
2187   update-notifier-kde
2188   xscreensaver-data-extra
2189   xscreensaver-gl
2190   xscreensaver-gl-extra
2191   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
2192 </p></blockquote>
2193
2194 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
2195
2196 <blockquote><p>
2197   ark
2198   google-gadgets-common
2199   google-gadgets-qt
2200   htdig
2201   kate
2202   kdebase-bin
2203   kdebase-data
2204   kdepasswd
2205   kfind
2206   klipper
2207   konq-plugins
2208   konqueror
2209   ksysguard
2210   ksysguardd
2211   libarchive1
2212   libcln6
2213   libeet1
2214   libeina-svn-06
2215   libggadget-1.0-0b
2216   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
2217   libgps19
2218   libkdecorations4
2219   libkephal4
2220   libkonq4
2221   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
2222   libkscreensaver5
2223   libksgrd4
2224   libksignalplotter4
2225   libkunitconversion4
2226   libkwineffects1a
2227   libmarblewidget4
2228   libntrack-qt4-1
2229   libntrack0
2230   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
2231   libplasmaclock4a
2232   libplasmagenericshell4
2233   libprocesscore4a
2234   libprocessui4a
2235   libqalculate5
2236   libqedje0a
2237   libqtruby4shared2
2238   libqzion0a
2239   libruby1.8
2240   libscim8c2a
2241   libsmokekdecore4-3
2242   libsmokekdeui4-3
2243   libsmokekfile3
2244   libsmokekhtml3
2245   libsmokekio3
2246   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
2247   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
2248   libsmokekparts3
2249   libsmokektexteditor3
2250   libsmokekutils3
2251   libsmokenepomuk3
2252   libsmokephonon3
2253   libsmokeplasma3
2254   libsmokeqtcore4-3
2255   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
2256   libsmokeqtgui4-3
2257   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
2258   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
2259   libsmokeqtscript4-3
2260   libsmokeqtsql4-3
2261   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
2262   libsmokeqttest4-3
2263   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
2264   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
2265   libsmokeqtxml4-3
2266   libsmokesolid3
2267   libsmokesoprano3
2268   libtaskmanager4a
2269   libtidy-0.99-0
2270   libweather-ion4a
2271   libxklavier16
2272   libxxf86misc1
2273   okteta
2274   oxygencursors
2275   plasma-dataengines-addons
2276   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
2277   plasma-widget-lancelot
2278   plasma-widgets-addons
2279   plasma-widgets-workspace
2280   polkit-kde-1
2281   ruby1.8
2282   systemsettings
2283   update-notifier-common
2284 </p></blockquote>
2285
2286 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
2287 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
2288 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
2289 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
2290
2291       </div>
2292       <div class="tags">
2293
2294
2295         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>.
2296
2297
2298       </div>
2299     </div>
2300     <div class="padding"></div>
2301
2302     <div class="entry">
2303       <div class="title">
2304         <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>
2305       </div>
2306       <div class="date">
2307         22nd November 2010
2308       </div>
2309       <div class="body">
2310         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
2311 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
2312 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
2313 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
2314 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
2315 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
2316 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
2317 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
2318 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
2319
2320 <p>I found
2321 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
2322 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
2323 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
2324 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
2325 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
2326 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
2327
2328 <pre>
2329 #!/bin/sh
2330
2331 # Based on
2332 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
2333
2334 set -e
2335 set -x
2336
2337 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
2338     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
2339     exit 1
2340 else
2341     host="$1"
2342 fi
2343
2344 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
2345     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
2346     exit 1
2347 fi
2348
2349 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
2350 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
2351 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
2352 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
2353
2354 img=$host.img
2355 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
2356 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
2357
2358 parted $img mklabel msdos
2359 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
2360 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
2361 parted $img set 1 boot on
2362
2363 modprobe dm-mod
2364 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
2365 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
2366
2367 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
2368 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
2369 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
2370
2371 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
2372 losetup -d /dev/loop0
2373 </pre>
2374
2375 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
2376 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
2377
2378 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
2379 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
2380 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
2381 seem to work just fine.</p>
2382
2383       </div>
2384       <div class="tags">
2385
2386
2387         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>.
2388
2389
2390       </div>
2391     </div>
2392     <div class="padding"></div>
2393
2394     <div class="entry">
2395       <div class="title">
2396         <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>
2397       </div>
2398       <div class="date">
2399         20th November 2010
2400       </div>
2401       <div class="body">
2402         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
2403 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
2404 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
2405 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
2406
2407 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
2408 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
2409 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
2410
2411 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
2412
2413 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
2414
2415 <blockquote><p>
2416   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
2417   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
2418   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
2419   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
2420   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
2421   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
2422   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
2423   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
2424   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
2425   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
2426   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
2427   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
2428   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
2429   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
2430   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
2431   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
2432   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
2433   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
2434   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
2435   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
2436   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
2437   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
2438   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
2439   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
2440   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
2441   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
2442   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
2443   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
2444   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
2445   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
2446   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
2447   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
2448   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
2449   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
2450   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
2451   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
2452   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
2453   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
2454   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
2455   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
2456   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
2457   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
2458   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
2459   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
2460   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
2461   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
2462   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
2463   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
2464   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
2465   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
2466   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
2467   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
2468   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
2469   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
2470   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
2471   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
2472   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
2473   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
2474   zip
2475 </p></blockquote>
2476
2477 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
2478
2479 <blockquote><p>
2480   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
2481   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
2482   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
2483   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
2484   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
2485   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
2486   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
2487   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
2488   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
2489   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
2490   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
2491   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
2492   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
2493   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
2494   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
2495   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
2496   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
2497   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
2498   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
2499   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
2500   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
2501   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
2502   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
2503   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
2504   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
2505   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
2506   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
2507   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
2508   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
2509 </p></blockquote>
2510
2511 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
2512
2513 <blockquote><p>
2514   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
2515 </p></blockquote>
2516
2517 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
2518
2519 <blockquote><p>
2520 [nothing]
2521 </p></blockquote>
2522
2523 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
2524
2525 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
2526
2527 <blockquote><p>
2528   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
2529   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
2530   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
2531   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
2532   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
2533   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
2534   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
2535   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
2536   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
2537   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
2538   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
2539   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
2540   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
2541   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
2542   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
2543   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
2544   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
2545   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
2546   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
2547   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
2548   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
2549   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
2550   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
2551   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
2552   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
2553   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
2554   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
2555   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
2556   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
2557   ttf-sazanami-gothic
2558 </p></blockquote>
2559
2560 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
2561
2562 <blockquote><p>
2563   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
2564   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
2565   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
2566   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
2567   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
2568   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
2569   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
2570   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
2571   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
2572   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
2573   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
2574   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
2575   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
2576   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
2577   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
2578   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
2579   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
2580   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
2581   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
2582   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
2583   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
2584   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
2585   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
2586   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
2587   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
2588   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
2589   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
2590   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
2591   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
2592   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
2593   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
2594   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
2595   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
2596 </p></blockquote>
2597
2598 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
2599
2600 <blockquote><p>
2601   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
2602   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
2603   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
2604   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
2605   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
2606   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
2607   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
2608 </p></blockquote>
2609
2610 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
2611
2612 <blockquote><p>
2613   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
2614 </p></blockquote>
2615
2616       </div>
2617       <div class="tags">
2618
2619
2620         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>.
2621
2622
2623       </div>
2624     </div>
2625     <div class="padding"></div>
2626
2627     <div class="entry">
2628       <div class="title">
2629         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
2630       </div>
2631       <div class="date">
2632         20th November 2010
2633       </div>
2634       <div class="body">
2635         <p>Answering
2636 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
2637 call from the Gnash project</a> for
2638 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
2639 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
2640 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
2641 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
2642 releases out more often.</p>
2643
2644 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
2645 I have considered setting up a <a
2646 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
2647 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
2648 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
2649 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
2650 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
2651 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
2652 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
2653 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
2654 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
2655 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
2656 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
2657 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
2658
2659       </div>
2660       <div class="tags">
2661
2662
2663         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>.
2664
2665
2666       </div>
2667     </div>
2668     <div class="padding"></div>
2669
2670     <div class="entry">
2671       <div class="title">
2672         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
2673       </div>
2674       <div class="date">
2675          9th November 2010
2676       </div>
2677       <div class="body">
2678         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
2679
2680 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
2681 3D linked in from
2682 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
2683 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
2684
2685       </div>
2686       <div class="tags">
2687
2688
2689         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>.
2690
2691
2692       </div>
2693     </div>
2694     <div class="padding"></div>
2695
2696     <div class="entry">
2697       <div class="title">
2698         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
2699       </div>
2700       <div class="date">
2701         24th October 2010
2702       </div>
2703       <div class="body">
2704         <p>Some updates.</p>
2705
2706 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
2707 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
2708 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
2709 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
2710 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
2711 :)</p>
2712
2713 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
2714 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
2715 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
2716 It is called
2717 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
2718 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
2719 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
2720 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
2721 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
2722 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
2723
2724 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
2725 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
2726 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
2727 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
2728 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
2729 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
2730 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
2731 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
2732 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
2733 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
2734
2735       </div>
2736       <div class="tags">
2737
2738
2739         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>.
2740
2741
2742       </div>
2743     </div>
2744     <div class="padding"></div>
2745
2746     <div class="entry">
2747       <div class="title">
2748         <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>
2749       </div>
2750       <div class="date">
2751          4th September 2010
2752       </div>
2753       <div class="body">
2754         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
2755 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
2756 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
2757 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
2758 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
2759 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
2760 installed.</p>
2761
2762 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
2763 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
2764 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
2765 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
2766 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
2767 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
2768 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
2769 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
2770 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
2771
2772 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
2773 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
2774 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
2775 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
2776 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
2777 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
2778 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
2779 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
2780 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
2781 pages they want to visit.</p>
2782
2783 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
2784 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
2785 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
2786 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
2787 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
2788 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
2789 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
2790 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
2791 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
2792 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
2793 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
2794
2795       </div>
2796       <div class="tags">
2797
2798
2799         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>.
2800
2801
2802       </div>
2803     </div>
2804     <div class="padding"></div>
2805
2806     <div class="entry">
2807       <div class="title">
2808         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
2809       </div>
2810       <div class="date">
2811         27th July 2010
2812       </div>
2813       <div class="body">
2814         <p>I discovered this while doing
2815 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
2816 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
2817 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
2818 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
2819 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
2820
2821 <p>An example is from todays
2822 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
2823 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
2824 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
2825 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
2826 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
2827 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
2828 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
2829
2830 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
2831
2832 <blockquote><pre>
2833 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
2834  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
2835   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
2836 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
2837  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
2838 </pre></blockquote>
2839
2840 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
2841 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
2842 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
2843 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
2844 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
2845 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
2846 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
2847 of dependency loops.</p>
2848
2849 <p>Thanks to
2850 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
2851 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
2852 dependencies
2853 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
2854 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
2855
2856 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
2857 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
2858 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
2859 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
2860 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
2861 it.</p>
2862
2863       </div>
2864       <div class="tags">
2865
2866
2867         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>.
2868
2869
2870       </div>
2871     </div>
2872     <div class="padding"></div>
2873
2874     <div class="entry">
2875       <div class="title">
2876         <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>
2877       </div>
2878       <div class="date">
2879         17th July 2010
2880       </div>
2881       <div class="body">
2882         <p>This is a
2883 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
2884 on my
2885 <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
2886 work</a> on
2887 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
2888 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
2889
2890 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
2891 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
2892 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
2893 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
2894
2895 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
2896 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
2897 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
2898
2899 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
2900
2901 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
2902 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
2903 the web.
2904
2905 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
2906 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
2907 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
2908 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
2909 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
2910 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
2911
2912 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
2913 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
2914 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
2915 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
2916 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
2917 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
2918 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
2919 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
2920 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
2921 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
2922 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
2923 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
2924 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
2925 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
2926 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
2927 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
2928
2929 <blockquote><pre>
2930 ldapsearch -h ldap \
2931   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
2932   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
2933   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
2934   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
2935   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
2936   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
2937
2938 ldapsearch -h ldap \
2939   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
2940   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
2941   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
2942   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
2943   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
2944 </pre></blockquote>
2945
2946 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
2947 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
2948 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
2949 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
2950 also exist.</p>
2951
2952 <blockquote><pre>
2953 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
2954 objectclass: top
2955 objectclass: dnsdomain
2956 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
2957 dc: tjener
2958 arecord: 10.0.2.2
2959 associateddomain: tjener.intern
2960
2961 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
2962 objectclass: top
2963 objectclass: dnsdomain2
2964 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
2965 dc: 2
2966 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
2967 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
2968 </pre></blockquote>
2969
2970 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
2971 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
2972 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
2973 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
2974 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
2975 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
2976 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
2977 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
2978 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
2979 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
2980 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
2981 instead.</p>
2982
2983 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
2984 like this:</p>
2985
2986 <blockquote><pre>
2987 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
2988   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
2989   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
2990   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
2991   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
2992   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
2993
2994 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
2995   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
2996 </pre></blockquote>
2997
2998 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
2999 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
3000 reverse lookups.</p>
3001
3002 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
3003 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
3004 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
3005 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
3006
3007 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
3008 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
3009 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
3010
3011 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
3012 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
3013 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
3014 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
3015 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
3016
3017 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
3018 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
3019 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
3020 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
3021 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
3022
3023 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
3024 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
3025 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
3026 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
3027 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
3028 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
3029
3030 <blockquote><pre>
3031 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
3032     SUP top
3033     AUXILIARY
3034     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
3035           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
3036           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
3037           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
3038           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
3039     ))
3040 </pre></blockquote>
3041
3042 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
3043 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
3044 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
3045 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
3046 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
3047 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
3048
3049 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
3050
3051 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
3052 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
3053 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
3054 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
3055 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
3056
3057 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
3058 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
3059 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
3060 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
3061
3062 <blockquote><pre>
3063 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
3064 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
3065 </pre></blockquote>
3066
3067 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
3068 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
3069 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
3070 search result is this entry:</p>
3071
3072 <blockquote><pre>
3073 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3074 cn: dhcp
3075 objectClass: top
3076 objectClass: dhcpServer
3077 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3078 </pre></blockquote>
3079
3080 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
3081 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
3082 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
3083 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
3084 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
3085 The search result is this entry:</p>
3086
3087 <blockquote><pre>
3088 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3089 cn: DHCP Config
3090 objectClass: top
3091 objectClass: dhcpService
3092 objectClass: dhcpOptions
3093 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3094 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
3095 dhcpStatements: authoritative
3096 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
3097 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
3098 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
3099 </pre></blockquote>
3100
3101 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
3102 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
3103 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
3104 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
3105 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
3106 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
3107 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
3108 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
3109 related computer objects.</p>
3110
3111 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
3112 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
3113 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
3114 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
3115 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
3116 like:</p>
3117
3118 <blockquote><pre>
3119 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3120 cn: hostname
3121 objectClass: top
3122 objectClass: dhcpHost
3123 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
3124 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
3125 </pre></blockquote>
3126
3127 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
3128 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
3129 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
3130 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
3131 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
3132 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
3133 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
3134 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
3135 structural object class.
3136
3137 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
3138
3139 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
3140 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
3141 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
3142 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
3143 in the configuration.</p>
3144
3145 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
3146 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
3147 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
3148 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
3149 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
3150 structure.</p>
3151
3152 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
3153 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
3154
3155 <blockquote><pre>
3156 ou=services
3157   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
3158     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
3159     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
3160       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
3161         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
3162     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
3163       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
3164         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
3165     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
3166       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
3167 </pre></blockquote>
3168
3169 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
3170 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
3171 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
3172 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
3173
3174 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
3175 like this:</p>
3176
3177 <blockquote><pre>
3178 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3179 dc: hostname
3180 objectClass: top
3181 objectClass: dhcpHost
3182 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3183 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
3184 associateddomain: hostname.intern
3185 arecord: 10.11.12.13
3186 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
3187 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
3188 </pre></blockquote>
3189
3190 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
3191 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
3192 auxiliary object class.</p>
3193
3194       </div>
3195       <div class="tags">
3196
3197
3198         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>.
3199
3200
3201       </div>
3202     </div>
3203     <div class="padding"></div>
3204
3205     <div class="entry">
3206       <div class="title">
3207         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
3208       </div>
3209       <div class="date">
3210         14th July 2010
3211       </div>
3212       <div class="body">
3213         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
3214 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
3215 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
3216 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
3217 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
3218
3219 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
3220 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
3221
3222 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
3223 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
3224 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
3225 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
3226 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
3227 to a slave DNS server.</p>
3228
3229 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
3230 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
3231 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
3232 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
3233 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
3234 seem to work.</p>
3235
3236 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
3237 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
3238 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
3239 this:</p>
3240
3241 <blockquote><pre>
3242   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3243   cn: hostname
3244   objectClass: dhcphost
3245   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3246   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
3247   associateddomain: hostname.intern
3248   arecord: 10.11.12.13
3249   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
3250   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
3251   ldapconfigsound: Y
3252 </pre></blockquote>
3253
3254 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
3255 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
3256 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
3257 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
3258
3259 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
3260 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
3261 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
3262 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
3263 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
3264 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
3265 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
3266 might be a good place to put it.</p>
3267
3268 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
3269 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
3270
3271       </div>
3272       <div class="tags">
3273
3274
3275         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>.
3276
3277
3278       </div>
3279     </div>
3280     <div class="padding"></div>
3281
3282     <div class="entry">
3283       <div class="title">
3284         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
3285       </div>
3286       <div class="date">
3287         11th July 2010
3288       </div>
3289       <div class="body">
3290         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
3291 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
3292 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
3293 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
3294
3295 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
3296 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
3297 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
3298 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
3299 LTSP clients.</p>
3300
3301 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
3302 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
3303 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
3304
3305 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
3306 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
3307 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
3308
3309 <blockquote><pre>
3310 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
3311 #
3312 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
3313 #
3314 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
3315 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
3316 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
3317 #
3318 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
3319 # existence of attribute names.
3320 #
3321 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
3322 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
3323 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
3324 #
3325 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
3326 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
3327 #
3328 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
3329 #     SUP top
3330 #     AUXILIARY
3331 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
3332
3333 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
3334 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
3335     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
3336     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
3337         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
3338         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
3339             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
3340             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
3341             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
3342             # bass value on to clients
3343             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
3344         done
3345     done
3346 fi
3347 </pre></blockquote>
3348
3349 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
3350 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
3351 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
3352 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
3353 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
3354
3355 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
3356 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
3357
3358 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
3359 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
3360 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
3361 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
3362 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
3363 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
3364
3365       </div>
3366       <div class="tags">
3367
3368
3369         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>.
3370
3371
3372       </div>
3373     </div>
3374     <div class="padding"></div>
3375
3376     <div class="entry">
3377       <div class="title">
3378         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
3379       </div>
3380       <div class="date">
3381          9th July 2010
3382       </div>
3383       <div class="body">
3384         <p>Since
3385 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
3386 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
3387 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
3388 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
3389 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
3390 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
3391 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
3392 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
3393 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
3394 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
3395 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
3396 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
3397 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
3398
3399       </div>
3400       <div class="tags">
3401
3402
3403         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>.
3404
3405
3406       </div>
3407     </div>
3408     <div class="padding"></div>
3409
3410     <div class="entry">
3411       <div class="title">
3412         <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>
3413       </div>
3414       <div class="date">
3415          3rd July 2010
3416       </div>
3417       <div class="body">
3418         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
3419 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
3420 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
3421 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
3422 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
3423 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
3424 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
3425 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
3426
3427 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
3428 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
3429 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
3430 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
3431 publish the difference.</p>
3432
3433 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3434
3435 <blockquote><p>
3436   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
3437   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
3438   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
3439   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
3440   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
3441   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
3442   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
3443   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
3444 </p></blockquote>
3445
3446 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3447
3448 <blockquote><p>
3449   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
3450   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
3451   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
3452   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
3453   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
3454   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
3455   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
3456   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
3457   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
3458   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
3459   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
3460   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
3461   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
3462   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
3463   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
3464   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
3465   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
3466   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
3467   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
3468   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
3469 </p></blockquote>
3470
3471 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3472
3473 <blockquote><p>
3474   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
3475   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
3476   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
3477   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
3478   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
3479   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
3480   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
3481   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
3482   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
3483   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
3484   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
3485   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
3486   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
3487   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
3488   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
3489   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
3490   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
3491   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
3492   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
3493   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
3494   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
3495 </p></blockquote>
3496
3497 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3498
3499 <blockquote><p>
3500   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
3501   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
3502   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
3503 </p></blockquote>
3504
3505 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
3506 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
3507 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
3508 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
3509 the difference somewhat.
3510
3511       </div>
3512       <div class="tags">
3513
3514
3515         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>.
3516
3517
3518       </div>
3519     </div>
3520     <div class="padding"></div>
3521
3522     <div class="entry">
3523       <div class="title">
3524         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
3525       </div>
3526       <div class="date">
3527         28th June 2010
3528       </div>
3529       <div class="body">
3530         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
3531 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
3532 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
3533 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
3534 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
3535 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
3536 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
3537 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
3538 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
3539 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
3540
3541 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
3542 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
3543 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
3544 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
3545 released.</p>
3546
3547 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
3548 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
3549 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
3550 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
3551
3552 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
3553 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
3554
3555 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
3556 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
3557 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
3558 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
3559 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
3560
3561       </div>
3562       <div class="tags">
3563
3564
3565         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>.
3566
3567
3568       </div>
3569     </div>
3570     <div class="padding"></div>
3571
3572     <div class="entry">
3573       <div class="title">
3574         <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>
3575       </div>
3576       <div class="date">
3577         24th June 2010
3578       </div>
3579       <div class="body">
3580         <p>A while back, I
3581 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
3582 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
3583 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
3584 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
3585
3586 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
3587 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
3588 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
3589 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
3590
3591 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
3592 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
3593 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
3594 Debian Edu.</p>
3595
3596 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
3597 the
3598 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
3599 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
3600 available today from IETF.</p>
3601
3602 <pre>
3603 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
3604 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
3605 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
3606  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
3607         NAME 'dhcpHost'
3608         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
3609 -       SUP top
3610 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
3611         MUST cn
3612         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
3613         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
3614 </pre>
3615
3616 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
3617 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
3618 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
3619
3620 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
3621 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
3622
3623       </div>
3624       <div class="tags">
3625
3626
3627         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>.
3628
3629
3630       </div>
3631     </div>
3632     <div class="padding"></div>
3633
3634     <div class="entry">
3635       <div class="title">
3636         <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>
3637       </div>
3638       <div class="date">
3639         16th June 2010
3640       </div>
3641       <div class="body">
3642         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
3643 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
3644 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
3645 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
3646 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
3647 this:
3648
3649 <blockquote><pre>
3650 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
3651 tasksel --new-install
3652 </pre></blockquote>
3653
3654 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
3655 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
3656 any output what so ever.
3657
3658 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
3659 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
3660 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
3661 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
3662 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
3663 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
3664 code like this:
3665
3666 <blockquote><pre>
3667 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
3668 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
3669 $cmd
3670 </pre></blockquote>
3671
3672 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
3673 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
3674 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
3675 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
3676 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
3677 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
3678 installation.</p>
3679
3680 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
3681 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
3682 like this.</p>
3683
3684       </div>
3685       <div class="tags">
3686
3687
3688         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>.
3689
3690
3691       </div>
3692     </div>
3693     <div class="padding"></div>
3694
3695     <div class="entry">
3696       <div class="title">
3697         <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>
3698       </div>
3699       <div class="date">
3700         13th June 2010
3701       </div>
3702       <div class="body">
3703         <p>My
3704 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
3705 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
3706 finally made the upgrade logs available from
3707 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
3708 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
3709 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
3710 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
3711
3712 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
3713 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
3714 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
3715 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
3716 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
3717 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
3718 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
3719 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
3720
3721 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
3722 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
3723 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
3724 too surprising.</p>
3725
3726 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
3727 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
3728 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
3729 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
3730 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
3731 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
3732 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
3733 continue.</p>
3734
3735 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
3736 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
3737   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
3738   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
3739   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
3740   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
3741   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
3742   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
3743   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
3744   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
3745   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
3746   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
3747   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
3748   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
3749   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
3750   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
3751   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
3752   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
3753   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
3754   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
3755   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
3756   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
3757   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
3758   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
3759   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
3760   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
3761   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
3762   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
3763   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
3764   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
3765
3766 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
3767
3768 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
3769   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
3770   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
3771   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
3772   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
3773   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
3774   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
3775   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
3776   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
3777   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
3778   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
3779   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
3780   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
3781   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
3782   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
3783   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
3784   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
3785   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
3786   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
3787   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
3788   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
3789   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
3790   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
3791   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
3792   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
3793   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
3794   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
3795   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
3796   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
3797   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
3798   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
3799   zip</p>
3800
3801 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
3802
3803 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
3804   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
3805   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
3806   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
3807   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
3808   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
3809   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
3810   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
3811   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
3812   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
3813   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
3814   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
3815   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
3816   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
3817   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
3818   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
3819   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
3820   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
3821   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
3822   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
3823   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
3824   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
3825   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
3826   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
3827   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
3828   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
3829   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
3830   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
3831
3832 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
3833 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
3834   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
3835   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
3836   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
3837   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
3838   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
3839   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
3840   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
3841   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
3842   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
3843   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
3844   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
3845   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
3846   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
3847   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
3848   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
3849   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
3850   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
3851   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
3852   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
3853   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
3854   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
3855   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
3856   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
3857   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
3858   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
3859   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
3860   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
3861   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
3862   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
3863   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
3864   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
3865   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
3866   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
3867   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
3868   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
3869   xulrunner-1.9</p>
3870
3871
3872       </div>
3873       <div class="tags">
3874
3875
3876         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>.
3877
3878
3879       </div>
3880     </div>
3881     <div class="padding"></div>
3882
3883     <div class="entry">
3884       <div class="title">
3885         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
3886       </div>
3887       <div class="date">
3888         11th June 2010
3889       </div>
3890       <div class="body">
3891         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
3892 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
3893 have been discovered and reported in the process
3894 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
3895 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
3896 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
3897 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
3898 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
3899
3900 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
3901 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
3902 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
3903 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
3904 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
3905 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
3906
3907 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
3908 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
3909 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
3910 is created.  The bug report
3911 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
3912 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
3913 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
3914 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
3915 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
3916 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
3917 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
3918 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
3919 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
3920 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
3921 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
3922 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
3923 Debian Squeeze.</p>
3924
3925 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
3926 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
3927 trick:</p>
3928
3929 <blockquote><pre>
3930 #!/bin/sh
3931 set -ex
3932
3933 if [ "$1" ] ; then
3934     desktop=$1
3935 else
3936     desktop=gnome
3937 fi
3938
3939 from=lenny
3940 to=squeeze
3941
3942 exec &lt; /dev/null
3943 unset LANG
3944 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
3945 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
3946 fuser -mv .
3947 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
3948 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
3949 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
3950 #!/bin/sh
3951 exit 101
3952 EOF
3953 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
3954 exit_cleanup() {
3955     umount $tmpdir/proc
3956 }
3957 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
3958 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
3959 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
3960
3961 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
3962
3963 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
3964 # to return the correct answers.
3965 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
3966     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
3967
3968 # Include the desktop and laptop task
3969 for test in desktop laptop ; do
3970     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
3971 #!/bin/sh
3972 exit 2
3973 EOF
3974     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
3975 done
3976
3977 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
3978 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
3979 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
3980 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
3981
3982 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
3983 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
3984 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
3985 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
3986 fuser -mv
3987 </pre></blockquote>
3988
3989 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
3990 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
3991 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
3992 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
3993 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
3994 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
3995
3996 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
3997 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
3998 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
3999 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
4000 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
4001 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
4002 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
4003
4004 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
4005 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
4006 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
4007 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
4008 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
4009 packages.</p>
4010
4011       </div>
4012       <div class="tags">
4013
4014
4015         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>.
4016
4017
4018       </div>
4019     </div>
4020     <div class="padding"></div>
4021
4022     <div class="entry">
4023       <div class="title">
4024         <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>
4025       </div>
4026       <div class="date">
4027          6th June 2010
4028       </div>
4029       <div class="body">
4030         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
4031 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
4032 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
4033 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
4034 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
4035 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
4036 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
4037
4038 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
4039 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
4040 COLUMNS):</p>
4041
4042 <blockquote><pre>
4043 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
4044 previous=N
4045 PREVLEVEL=
4046 RUNLEVEL=
4047 runlevel=S
4048 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
4049 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
4050 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
4051 </pre></blockquote>
4052
4053 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
4054 script.</p>
4055
4056 <blockquote><pre>
4057 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
4058 previous=N
4059 PREVLEVEL=N
4060 RUNLEVEL=S
4061 runlevel=S
4062 </pre></blockquote>
4063
4064 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
4065 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
4066 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
4067
4068 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
4069 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
4070 choice.</p>
4071
4072       </div>
4073       <div class="tags">
4074
4075
4076         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>.
4077
4078
4079       </div>
4080     </div>
4081     <div class="padding"></div>
4082
4083     <div class="entry">
4084       <div class="title">
4085         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
4086       </div>
4087       <div class="date">
4088          6th June 2010
4089       </div>
4090       <div class="body">
4091         <p>Via the
4092 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
4093 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
4094 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
4095 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
4096 following the standards wars of today.</p>
4097
4098       </div>
4099       <div class="tags">
4100
4101
4102         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>.
4103
4104
4105       </div>
4106     </div>
4107     <div class="padding"></div>
4108
4109     <div class="entry">
4110       <div class="title">
4111         <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>
4112       </div>
4113       <div class="date">
4114          3rd June 2010
4115       </div>
4116       <div class="body">
4117         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
4118 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
4119 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
4120 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
4121 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
4122
4123 <blockquote><pre>
4124 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
4125   vendor                    count
4126   Dell Computer Corporation     1
4127     PowerEdge 1750              1
4128   IBM                           1
4129     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
4130   Intel                         2
4131   [no-dmi-info]                 3
4132 maintainer:~#
4133 </pre></blockquote>
4134
4135 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
4136 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
4137 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
4138 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
4139 option to list the individual machines.</p>
4140
4141 <p>A larger list is
4142 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
4143 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
4144 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
4145 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
4146 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
4147 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
4148 collector.</p>
4149
4150       </div>
4151       <div class="tags">
4152
4153
4154         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>.
4155
4156
4157       </div>
4158     </div>
4159     <div class="padding"></div>
4160
4161     <div class="entry">
4162       <div class="title">
4163         <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>
4164       </div>
4165       <div class="date">
4166          1st June 2010
4167       </div>
4168       <div class="body">
4169         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
4170 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
4171 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
4172 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
4173 wait.</p>
4174
4175 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
4176 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
4177 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
4178 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
4179 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
4180 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
4181
4182 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
4183 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
4184 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
4185 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
4186 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
4187 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
4188 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
4189 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
4190
4191 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
4192
4193       </div>
4194       <div class="tags">
4195
4196
4197         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>.
4198
4199
4200       </div>
4201     </div>
4202     <div class="padding"></div>
4203
4204     <div class="entry">
4205       <div class="title">
4206         <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>
4207       </div>
4208       <div class="date">
4209         27th May 2010
4210       </div>
4211       <div class="body">
4212         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
4213 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
4214 issues are known and should be solved:
4215
4216 <p><ul>
4217
4218 <li>The wicd package seen to
4219 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
4220 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
4221 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
4222 seem to be on the case.</li>
4223
4224 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
4225 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
4226 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
4227 maintainer is on the case.</li>
4228
4229 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
4230 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
4231 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
4232 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
4233 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
4234 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
4235 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
4236 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
4237
4238 </ul></p>
4239
4240 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
4241 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
4242 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
4243 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
4244
4245 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
4246 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
4247 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
4248 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
4249
4250 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
4251
4252       </div>
4253       <div class="tags">
4254
4255
4256         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>.
4257
4258
4259       </div>
4260     </div>
4261     <div class="padding"></div>
4262
4263     <div class="entry">
4264       <div class="title">
4265         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
4266       </div>
4267       <div class="date">
4268         22nd May 2010
4269       </div>
4270       <div class="body">
4271         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
4272 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
4273 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
4274 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
4275
4276 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
4277 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
4278 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
4279 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
4280 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
4281 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
4282 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
4283 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
4284 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
4285 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
4286 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
4287 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
4288 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
4289 going to work.</p>
4290
4291 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
4292 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
4293 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
4294 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
4295 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
4296 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
4297 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
4298 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
4299 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
4300 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
4301 Edu.</p>
4302
4303 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
4304 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
4305 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
4306 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
4307 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
4308 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
4309
4310 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
4311 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
4312
4313       </div>
4314       <div class="tags">
4315
4316
4317         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>.
4318
4319
4320       </div>
4321     </div>
4322     <div class="padding"></div>
4323
4324     <div class="entry">
4325       <div class="title">
4326         <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>
4327       </div>
4328       <div class="date">
4329         14th May 2010
4330       </div>
4331       <div class="body">
4332         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
4333 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
4334 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
4335 expected, if I am to believe the
4336 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
4337 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
4338 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
4339 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
4340 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
4341 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
4342 version.</p>
4343
4344 More information about
4345 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
4346 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
4347 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
4348 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
4349
4350 <blockquote><pre>
4351 CONCURRENCY=none
4352 </pre></blockquote>
4353
4354 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
4355 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
4356 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
4357 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
4358
4359       </div>
4360       <div class="tags">
4361
4362
4363         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>.
4364
4365
4366       </div>
4367     </div>
4368     <div class="padding"></div>
4369
4370     <div class="entry">
4371       <div class="title">
4372         <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>
4373       </div>
4374       <div class="date">
4375         14th May 2010
4376       </div>
4377       <div class="body">
4378         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
4379 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
4380 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
4381 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
4382 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
4383 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
4384 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
4385 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
4386
4387 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
4388 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
4389 this on the collector host:</p>
4390
4391 <blockquote><pre>
4392 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
4393 </pre></blockquote>
4394
4395 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
4396 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
4397
4398 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
4399 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
4400 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
4401 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
4402 written yet.</p>
4403
4404       </div>
4405       <div class="tags">
4406
4407
4408         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>.
4409
4410
4411       </div>
4412     </div>
4413     <div class="padding"></div>
4414
4415     <div class="entry">
4416       <div class="title">
4417         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
4418       </div>
4419       <div class="date">
4420         13th May 2010
4421       </div>
4422       <div class="body">
4423         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
4424 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
4425 has been
4426 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
4427
4428 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
4429 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
4430 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
4431 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
4432 based boot system.  Tollef is
4433 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
4434 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
4435 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
4436 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
4437 at the moment do not.</p>
4438
4439 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
4440 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
4441 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
4442 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
4443 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
4444 way forward.</p>
4445
4446 <p>In the mean time, based on the
4447 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
4448 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
4449 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
4450 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
4451 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
4452 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
4453 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
4454 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
4455
4456       </div>
4457       <div class="tags">
4458
4459
4460         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>.
4461
4462
4463       </div>
4464     </div>
4465     <div class="padding"></div>
4466
4467     <div class="entry">
4468       <div class="title">
4469         <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>
4470       </div>
4471       <div class="date">
4472          6th May 2010
4473       </div>
4474       <div class="body">
4475         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
4476 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
4477 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
4478 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
4479 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
4480 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
4481 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
4482
4483 <blockquote><pre>
4484 CONCURRENCY=makefile
4485 </pre></blockquote>
4486
4487 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
4488 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
4489 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
4490 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
4491 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
4492 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
4493 make this happen.</p>
4494
4495 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
4496 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
4497 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
4498 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
4499 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
4500
4501 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
4502 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
4503 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
4504 fix the remaining issues.</p>
4505
4506 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
4507 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
4508 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
4509 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
4510
4511       </div>
4512       <div class="tags">
4513
4514
4515         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>.
4516
4517
4518       </div>
4519     </div>
4520     <div class="padding"></div>
4521
4522     <div class="entry">
4523       <div class="title">
4524         <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>
4525       </div>
4526       <div class="date">
4527         27th July 2009
4528       </div>
4529       <div class="body">
4530         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
4531 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
4532 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
4533 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
4534 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
4535 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
4536 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
4537
4538 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
4539 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
4540 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
4541
4542       </div>
4543       <div class="tags">
4544
4545
4546         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>.
4547
4548
4549       </div>
4550     </div>
4551     <div class="padding"></div>
4552
4553     <div class="entry">
4554       <div class="title">
4555         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
4556       </div>
4557       <div class="date">
4558         22nd July 2009
4559       </div>
4560       <div class="body">
4561         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
4562 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
4563 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
4564 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
4565 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
4566 the package up to date.</p>
4567
4568 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
4569 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
4570 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
4571 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
4572 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
4573 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
4574 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
4575 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
4576 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
4577 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
4578 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
4579 working on the future release.</p>
4580
4581 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
4582 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
4583
4584       </div>
4585       <div class="tags">
4586
4587
4588         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>.
4589
4590
4591       </div>
4592     </div>
4593     <div class="padding"></div>
4594
4595     <div class="entry">
4596       <div class="title">
4597         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
4598       </div>
4599       <div class="date">
4600         24th June 2009
4601       </div>
4602       <div class="body">
4603         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
4604 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
4605 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
4606 funded
4607 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
4608 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
4609 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
4610 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
4611 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
4612 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
4613
4614 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
4615 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
4616 boot:</p>
4617
4618 <ul>
4619
4620 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
4621
4622 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
4623    clock is in UTC.</li>
4624
4625 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
4626    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
4627    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
4628
4629 </ul>
4630
4631 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
4632 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
4633 Villegas</a>.
4634
4635 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
4636 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
4637 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
4638 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
4639 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
4640 using this.</p>
4641
4642 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
4643 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
4644 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
4645 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
4646 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
4647 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
4648 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
4649
4650       </div>
4651       <div class="tags">
4652
4653
4654         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>.
4655
4656
4657       </div>
4658     </div>
4659     <div class="padding"></div>
4660
4661     <div class="entry">
4662       <div class="title">
4663         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
4664       </div>
4665       <div class="date">
4666         17th May 2009
4667       </div>
4668       <div class="body">
4669         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
4670 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
4671 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
4672 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
4673 dager siden kom
4674 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
4675 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
4676 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
4677 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
4678 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
4679
4680 <blockquote>
4681 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
4682 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
4683 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
4684 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
4685 </blockquote>
4686
4687 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
4688 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
4689 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
4690 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
4691 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
4692
4693 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
4694 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
4695 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
4696
4697       </div>
4698       <div class="tags">
4699
4700
4701         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>.
4702
4703
4704       </div>
4705     </div>
4706     <div class="padding"></div>
4707
4708     <div class="entry">
4709       <div class="title">
4710         <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>
4711       </div>
4712       <div class="date">
4713          7th May 2009
4714       </div>
4715       <div class="body">
4716         <p>Kom over
4717 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
4718 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
4719 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
4720 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
4721 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
4722 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
4723 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
4724
4725       </div>
4726       <div class="tags">
4727
4728
4729         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>.
4730
4731
4732       </div>
4733     </div>
4734     <div class="padding"></div>
4735
4736     <div class="entry">
4737       <div class="title">
4738         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
4739       </div>
4740       <div class="date">
4741          2nd May 2009
4742       </div>
4743       <div class="body">
4744         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
4745 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
4746 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
4747 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
4748 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
4749 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
4750 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
4751 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
4752 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
4753 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
4754 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
4755 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
4756 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
4757 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
4758 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
4759 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
4760 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
4761 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
4762 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
4763 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
4764
4765 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
4766 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
4767 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
4768 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
4769 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
4770 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
4771 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
4772 betydelige.</p>
4773
4774       </div>
4775       <div class="tags">
4776
4777
4778         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>.
4779
4780
4781       </div>
4782     </div>
4783     <div class="padding"></div>
4784
4785     <div class="entry">
4786       <div class="title">
4787         <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>
4788       </div>
4789       <div class="date">
4790          2nd May 2009
4791       </div>
4792       <div class="body">
4793         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
4794 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
4795 do not yet know them.</p>
4796
4797 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
4798 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
4799 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
4800 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
4801 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
4802 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
4803 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
4804 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
4805 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
4806 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
4807 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
4808
4809 <p>The second one is
4810 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
4811 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
4812 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
4813 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
4814 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
4815 and the company behind it is running
4816 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
4817 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
4818 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
4819 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
4820 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
4821 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
4822 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
4823 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
4824
4825 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
4826 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
4827 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
4828 surrounded by today.</p>
4829
4830       </div>
4831       <div class="tags">
4832
4833
4834         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>.
4835
4836
4837       </div>
4838     </div>
4839     <div class="padding"></div>
4840
4841     <div class="entry">
4842       <div class="title">
4843         <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>
4844       </div>
4845       <div class="date">
4846         28th April 2009
4847       </div>
4848       <div class="body">
4849         <p>Julien Blache
4850 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
4851 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
4852 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
4853 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
4854 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
4855 properties.</p>
4856
4857       </div>
4858       <div class="tags">
4859
4860
4861         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>.
4862
4863
4864       </div>
4865     </div>
4866     <div class="padding"></div>
4867
4868     <div class="entry">
4869       <div class="title">
4870         <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>
4871       </div>
4872       <div class="date">
4873         30th March 2009
4874       </div>
4875       <div class="body">
4876         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
4877 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
4878 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
4879 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
4880 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
4881 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
4882 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
4883 application.</p>
4884
4885 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
4886 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
4887 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
4888 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
4889 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
4890 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
4891 blocked from doing so.</p>
4892
4893 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
4894 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
4895 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
4896 requirements change.</p>
4897
4898 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
4899 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
4900 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
4901
4902       </div>
4903       <div class="tags">
4904
4905
4906         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>.
4907
4908
4909       </div>
4910     </div>
4911     <div class="padding"></div>
4912
4913     <div class="entry">
4914       <div class="title">
4915         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
4916       </div>
4917       <div class="date">
4918         29th March 2009
4919       </div>
4920       <div class="body">
4921         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
4922 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
4923 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
4924 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
4925 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
4926 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
4927 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
4928 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
4929 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
4930 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
4931 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
4932 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
4933 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
4934 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
4935 now. :)</p>
4936
4937       </div>
4938       <div class="tags">
4939
4940
4941         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>.
4942
4943
4944       </div>
4945     </div>
4946     <div class="padding"></div>
4947
4948     <div class="entry">
4949       <div class="title">
4950         <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>
4951       </div>
4952       <div class="date">
4953         29th March 2009
4954       </div>
4955       <div class="body">
4956         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
4957 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
4958 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
4959 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
4960 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
4961 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
4962
4963 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
4964 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
4965 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
4966 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
4967 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
4968 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
4969 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
4970 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
4971 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
4972 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
4973 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
4974 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
4975 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
4976
4977 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
4978 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
4979 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
4980 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
4981
4982 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
4983 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
4984
4985 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
4986 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
4987 new IETF work group?</p>
4988
4989       </div>
4990       <div class="tags">
4991
4992
4993         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>.
4994
4995
4996       </div>
4997     </div>
4998     <div class="padding"></div>
4999
5000     <div class="entry">
5001       <div class="title">
5002         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
5003       </div>
5004       <div class="date">
5005         15th February 2009
5006       </div>
5007       <div class="body">
5008         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
5009 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
5010 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
5011 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
5012 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
5013 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
5014 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
5015 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
5016 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
5017 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
5018 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
5019 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
5020
5021       </div>
5022       <div class="tags">
5023
5024
5025         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>.
5026
5027
5028       </div>
5029     </div>
5030     <div class="padding"></div>
5031
5032     <div class="entry">
5033       <div class="title">
5034         <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>
5035       </div>
5036       <div class="date">
5037          7th December 2008
5038       </div>
5039       <div class="body">
5040         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
5041 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
5042 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
5043 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
5044 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
5045 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
5046 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
5047 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
5048
5049 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
5050 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
5051 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
5052 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
5053 of these cards.</p>
5054
5055       </div>
5056       <div class="tags">
5057
5058
5059         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>.
5060
5061
5062       </div>
5063     </div>
5064     <div class="padding"></div>
5065
5066     <div class="entry">
5067       <div class="title">
5068         <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>
5069       </div>
5070       <div class="date">
5071         25th November 2008
5072       </div>
5073       <div class="body">
5074         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
5075 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
5076 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
5077 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
5078 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
5079 notes are available on
5080 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
5081 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
5082 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
5083 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
5084 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
5085 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
5086 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
5087 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
5088 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
5089
5090 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
5091 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
5092
5093       </div>
5094       <div class="tags">
5095
5096
5097         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>.
5098
5099
5100       </div>
5101     </div>
5102     <div class="padding"></div>
5103
5104     <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>
5105     <div id="sidebar">
5106
5107
5108
5109 <h2>Archive</h2>
5110 <ul>
5111
5112 <li>2013
5113 <ul>
5114
5115 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (6)</a></li>
5116
5117 </ul></li>
5118
5119 <li>2012
5120 <ul>
5121
5122 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
5123
5124 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
5125
5126 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
5127
5128 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
5129
5130 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
5131
5132 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
5133
5134 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
5135
5136 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
5137
5138 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
5139
5140 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
5141
5142 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
5143
5144 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
5145
5146 </ul></li>
5147
5148 <li>2011
5149 <ul>
5150
5151 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
5152
5153 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
5154
5155 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
5156
5157 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
5158
5159 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
5160
5161 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
5162
5163 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
5164
5165 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
5166
5167 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
5168
5169 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
5170
5171 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
5172
5173 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
5174
5175 </ul></li>
5176
5177 <li>2010
5178 <ul>
5179
5180 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
5181
5182 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
5183
5184 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
5185
5186 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
5187
5188 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
5189
5190 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
5191
5192 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
5193
5194 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
5195
5196 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
5197
5198 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
5199
5200 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
5201
5202 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
5203
5204 </ul></li>
5205
5206 <li>2009
5207 <ul>
5208
5209 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
5210
5211 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
5212
5213 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
5214
5215 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
5216
5217 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
5218
5219 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
5220
5221 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
5222
5223 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
5224
5225 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
5226
5227 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
5228
5229 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
5230
5231 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
5232
5233 </ul></li>
5234
5235 <li>2008
5236 <ul>
5237
5238 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
5239
5240 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
5241
5242 </ul></li>
5243
5244 </ul>
5245
5246
5247
5248 <h2>Tags</h2>
5249 <ul>
5250
5251  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
5252
5253  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
5254
5255  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
5256
5257  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
5258
5259  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (5)</a></li>
5260
5261  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
5262
5263  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
5264
5265  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (64)</a></li>
5266
5267  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (118)</a></li>
5268
5269  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (9)</a></li>
5270
5271  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (7)</a></li>
5272
5273  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
5274
5275  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (170)</a></li>
5276
5277  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
5278
5279  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
5280
5281  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (10)</a></li>
5282
5283  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (9)</a></li>
5284
5285  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (32)</a></li>
5286
5287  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (17)</a></li>
5288
5289  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
5290
5291  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
5292
5293  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
5294
5295  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
5296
5297  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (219)</a></li>
5298
5299  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (148)</a></li>
5300
5301  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (6)</a></li>
5302
5303  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
5304
5305  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (41)</a></li>
5306
5307  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (61)</a></li>
5308
5309  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
5310
5311  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
5312
5313  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
5314
5315  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (6)</a></li>
5316
5317  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
5318
5319  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
5320
5321  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
5322
5323  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (28)</a></li>
5324
5325  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
5326
5327  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
5328
5329  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (39)</a></li>
5330
5331  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
5332
5333  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (5)</a></li>
5334
5335  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (12)</a></li>
5336
5337  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
5338
5339  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (7)</a></li>
5340
5341  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (35)</a></li>
5342
5343  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
5344
5345  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (26)</a></li>
5346
5347 </ul>
5348
5349
5350     </div>
5351     <p style="text-align: right">
5352  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.4</a>
5353 </p>
5354
5355   </body>
5356 </html>