1 <?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"utf-8"?>
2 <rss version='
2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/
1.0/' xmlns:
atom=
"http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen
</title>
5 <description></description>
6 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/
</link>
7 <atom:link href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/index.rss" rel=
"self" type=
"application/rss+xml" />
10 <title>Brushing up on old packages in Xiph and Debian
</title>
11 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Brushing_up_on_old_packages_in_Xiph_and_Debian.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Brushing_up_on_old_packages_in_Xiph_and_Debian.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Fri,
28 Feb
2025 16:
45:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>Since my motivation boost in the beginning of the month caused me
15 to wrap up a new release of
16 <tt
><a href=
"https://xiph.org/oggz/
">liboggz
</a
></tt
>, I have used the
17 same boost to wrap up new editions of
18 <tt
><a href=
"https://xiph.org/fishsound/
">libfishsound
</a
></tt
>,
19 <tt
><a href=
"https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/liboggplay/
">liboggplay
</a
></tt
>
21 <tt
><a href=
"https://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/OggKate
">libkate
</a
></tt
>
22 too. These have been tagged in upstream git, but not yet published on
23 the Xiph download location. I am waiting for someone with access to
24 have time to move the tarballs there, I hope it will happen in a few
25 days. The same is the case for a minor update of liboggz too.
</p
>
27 <p
>As I was looking at Xiph packages lacking updates, it occurred to
28 me that there are packages in Debian that have not received a new
29 upload in a long time. Looking for a way to identify them, I came
30 across the
<tt
>ltnu
</tt
> script from the
31 <tt
><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/devscripts
">devscripts
</a
></tt
>
32 package. It can sort by last update, packages maintained by a single
33 user/group, and is useful to figure out which packages a single
34 maintainer should have a look at. But I wanted a archive wide
35 summary. I lifted the
<a href=
"https://udd.debian.org/
">UDD
</a
> SQL
36 query used by ltnu from the script and adjusted it slightly to end up
37 with the following command:
</p
>
41 env PGPASSWORD=udd-mirror psql --host=udd-mirror.debian.net --user=udd-mirror udd --command=
"
46 where distribution=
'unstable
' and
47 source in (select source
49 where release=
'sid
')
51 order by max(date) asc
55 <p
>This will sort all source packages in Debian by upload date, and
56 list the
50 oldest ones. The end result is a list of packages I
57 suspect could use some attention:
</p
>
60 source | ver | uploaded
61 -----------------------------+-------------------------+------------------------
62 xserver-xorg-video-ivtvdev |
1.1.2-
1 |
2011-
02-
09 22:
26:
27+
00
63 dynamite |
0.1.1-
2 |
2011-
04-
30 16:
47:
20+
00
64 xkbind |
2010.05.20-
1 |
2011-
05-
02 22:
48:
05+
00
65 libspctag |
0.2-
1 |
2011-
09-
22 18:
47:
07+
00
66 gromit |
20041213-
9 |
2011-
11-
13 21:
02:
56+
00
67 s3switch |
0.1-
1 |
2011-
11-
22 15:
47:
40+
00
68 cd5 |
0.1-
3 |
2011-
12-
07 21:
19:
05+
00
69 xserver-xorg-video-glide |
1.2.0-
1 |
2011-
12-
30 16:
50:
48+
00
70 blahtexml |
0.9-
1.1 |
2012-
04-
25 11:
32:
11+
00
71 aggregate |
1.6-
7 |
2012-
05-
01 00:
47:
11+
00
72 rtfilter |
1.1-
4 |
2012-
05-
11 12:
50:
00+
00
73 sic |
1.1-
5 |
2012-
05-
11 19:
10:
31+
00
74 kbdd |
0.6-
4 |
2012-
05-
12 07:
33:
32+
00
75 logtop |
0.4.3-
1 |
2012-
06-
05 23:
04:
20+
00
76 gbemol |
0.3.2-
2 |
2012-
06-
26 17:
03:
11+
00
77 pidgin-mra |
20100304-
1 |
2012-
06-
29 23:
07:
41+
00
78 mumudvb |
1.7.1-
1 |
2012-
06-
30 09:
12:
14+
00
79 libdr-sundown-perl |
0.02-
1 |
2012-
08-
18 10:
00:
07+
00
80 ztex-bmp |
20120314-
2 |
2012-
08-
18 19:
47:
55+
00
81 display-dhammapada |
1.0-
0.1 |
2012-
12-
19 12:
02:
32+
00
82 eot-utils |
1.1-
1 |
2013-
02-
19 17:
02:
28+
00
83 multiwatch |
1.0.0-rc1+really1.0
.0-
1 |
2013-
02-
19 17:
02:
35+
00
84 pidgin-latex |
1.5.0-
1 |
2013-
04-
04 15:
03:
43+
00
85 libkeepalive |
0.2-
1 |
2013-
04-
08 22:
00:
07+
00
86 dfu-programmer |
0.6.1-
1 |
2013-
04-
23 13:
32:
32+
00
87 libb64 |
1.2-
3 |
2013-
05-
05 21:
04:
51+
00
88 i810switch |
0.6.5-
7.1 |
2013-
05-
10 13:
03:
18+
00
89 premake4 |
4.3+repack1-
2 |
2013-
05-
31 12:
48:
51+
00
90 unagi |
0.3.4-
1 |
2013-
06-
05 11:
19:
32+
00
91 mod-vhost-ldap |
2.4.0-
1 |
2013-
07-
12 07:
19:
00+
00
92 libapache2-mod-ldap-userdir |
1.1.19-
2.1 |
2013-
07-
12 21:
22:
48+
00
93 w9wm |
0.4.2-
8 |
2013-
07-
18 11:
49:
10+
00
94 vish |
0.0.20130812-
1 |
2013-
08-
12 21:
10:
37+
00
95 xfishtank |
2.5-
1 |
2013-
08-
20 17:
34:
06+
00
96 wap-wml-tools |
0.0.4-
7 |
2013-
08-
21 16:
19:
10+
00
97 ttysnoop |
0.12d-
6 |
2013-
08-
24 17:
33:
09+
00
98 libkaz |
1.21-
2 |
2013-
09-
02 16:
00:
10+
00
99 rarpd |
0.981107-
9 |
2013-
09-
02 19:
48:
24+
00
100 libimager-qrcode-perl |
0.033-
1.2 |
2013-
09-
04 21:
06:
31+
00
101 dov4l |
0.9+repack-
1 |
2013-
09-
22 19:
33:
25+
00
102 textdraw |
0.2+ds-
0+nmu1 |
2013-
10-
07 21:
25:
03+
00
103 gzrt |
0.8-
1 |
2013-
10-
08 06:
33:
13+
00
104 away |
0.9.5+ds-
0+nmu2 |
2013-
10-
25 01:
18:
18+
00
105 jshon |
20131010-
1 |
2013-
11-
30 00:
00:
11+
00
106 libstar-parser-perl |
0.59-
4 |
2013-
12-
23 21:
50:
43+
00
107 gcal |
3.6.3-
3 |
2013-
12-
29 18:
33:
29+
00
108 fonts-larabie |
1:
20011216-
5 |
2014-
01-
02 21:
20:
49+
00
109 ccd2iso |
0.3-
4 |
2014-
01-
28 06:
33:
35+
00
110 kerneltop |
0.91-
1 |
2014-
02-
04 12:
03:
30+
00
111 vera++ |
1.2.1-
2 |
2014-
02-
04 21:
21:
37+
00
115 <p
>So there are
8 packages last uploaded to unstable in
2011,
12
116 packages in
2012 and
26 packages in
2013. I suspect their maintainers
117 need help and we should all offer our assistance. I already contacted
118 two of them and hope the rest of the Debian community will chip in to
119 help too. We should ensure any Debian specific patches are passed
120 upstream if they still exist, that the package is brought up to speed
121 with the latest Debian policy, as well as ensure the source can built
122 with the current compiler set in Debian.
</p
>
124 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
125 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
126 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
131 <title>Some of my
2024 free software activities
</title>
132 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Some_of_my_2024_free_software_activities.html
</link>
133 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Some_of_my_2024_free_software_activities.html
</guid>
134 <pubDate>Mon,
10 Feb
2025 09:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
135 <description><p
>It is a while since I posted a summary of the free software and
136 open culture activities and projects I have worked on. Here is a
137 quick summary of the major ones from last year.
</p
>
139 <p
>I guess the biggest project of the year has been migrating orphaned
140 packages in Debian without a version control system to have a git
141 repository on salsa.debian.org. When I started in April around
450
142 the orphaned packages needed git. I
've since migrated around
250 of
143 the packages to a salsa git repository, and around
40 packages were
144 left when I took a break. Not sure who did the around
160 conversions
145 I was not involved in, but I am very glad I got some help on the
146 project. I stopped partly because some of the remaining packages
147 needed more disk space to build than I have available on my
148 development machine, and partly because some had a strange build setup
149 I could not figure out. I had a time budget of
20 minutes per
150 package, if the package proved problematic and likely to take longer,
151 I moved to another package. Might continue later, if I manage to free
152 up some disk space.
</p
>
154 <p
>Another rather big project was the translation to Norwegian Bokmål
155 and publishing of the first book ever published by a Sámi woman, the
156 «
<a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/publisher/#infoerlifellerdoed2024
">Møter
157 vi liv eller død?
</a
>» book by Elsa Laula, with a PD0 and CC-BY
158 license. I released it during the summer, and to my surprise it has
159 already sold several copies. As I suck at marketing, I did not expect
160 to sell any.
</p
>
162 <p
>A smaller, but more long term project (for more than
10 years now),
163 and related to orphaned packages in Debian, is my project to ensure a
164 simple way to install hardware related packages in Debian when the
165 relevant hardware is present in a machine. It made a fairly big
166 advance forward last year, partly because I have been poking and
167 begging package maintainers and upstream developers to include
168 AppStream metadata XML in their packages. I
've also released a few
169 new versions of the isenkram system with some robustness improvements.
170 Today
127 packages in Debian provide such information, allowing
171 <tt
>isenkram-lookup
</tt
> to propose them. Will keep pushing until the
172 around
35 package names currently hard coded in the isenkram package
173 are down to zero, so only information provided by individual packages
174 are used for this feature.
</p
>
176 <p
>As part of the work on AppStream, I have sponsored several packages
177 into Debian where the maintainer wanted to fix the issue but lacked
178 direct upload rights. I
've also sponsored a few other packages, when
179 approached by the maintainer.
</p
>
181 <p
>I would also like to mention two hardware related packages in
182 particular where I have been involved, the megactl and mfi-util
183 packages. Both work with the hardware RAID systems in several Dell
184 PowerEdge servers, and the first one is already available in Debian
185 (and of course, proposed by isenkram when used on the appropriate Dell
186 server), the other is waiting for NEW processing since this autumn. I
187 manage several such Dell servers and would like the tools needed to
188 monitor and configure these RAID controllers to be available from
189 within Debian out of the box.
</p
>
191 <p
>Vaguely related to hardware support in Debian, I have also been
192 trying to find ways to help out the Debian ROCm team, to improve the
193 support in Debian for my artificial idiocy (AI) compute node. So far
194 only uploaded one package, helped test the initial packaging of
195 llama.cpp and tried to figure out how to get good speech recognition
196 like Whisper into Debian.
<p
>
198 <p
>I am still involved in the LinuxCNC project, and organised a
199 developer gathering in Norway last summer. A new one is planned the
200 summer of
2025. I
've also helped evaluate patches and uploaded new
201 versions of LinuxCNC into Debian.
</p
>
203 <p
>After a
10 years long break, we managed to get a new and improved
204 upstream version of
<tt
>lsdvd
</tt
> released just before Christmas. As
205 I use it regularly to maintain my DVD archive, I was very happy to
206 finally get out a version supporting DVDDiscID useful for uniquely
207 identifying DVDs. I am dreaming of a Internet service mapping DVD IDs
208 to IMDB movie IDs, to make life as a DVD collector easier.
</p
>
210 <p
>My involvement in Norwegian archive standardisation and the free
211 software implementation of the vendor neutral Noark
5 API continued
212 for the entire year. I
've been pushing patches into both the API and
213 the test code for the API, participated in several editorial meetings
214 regarding the Noark
5 Tjenestegrensesnitt specification, submitted
215 several proposals for improvements for the same. We also organised a
216 small seminar for Noark
5 interested people, and is organising a new
217 seminar in a month.
</p
>
219 <p
>Part of the year was spent working on and coordinating a Norwegian
220 Bokmål translation of the marvellous children
's book
221 «
<a href=
"https://fsfe.org/activities/ada-zangemann/
">Ada and
222 Zangemann
<a
>», which focus on the right to repair and control your own
223 property, and the value of controlling the software on the devices you
224 own. The translation is mostly complete, and is now waiting for a
225 transformation of the project and manuscript to use Docbook XML
226 instead of a home made semi-text based format. Great progress is
227 being made and the new book build process is almost complete.
</p
>
229 <p
>I have also been looking at how to companies in Norway can use free
230 software to report their accounting summaries to the Norwegian
231 government. Several new regulations make it very hard for companies
232 to do use free software for accounting, and I would like to change
233 this. Found a few drafts for opening up the reporting process, and
234 have read up on some of the specifications, but nothing much is
235 working yet.
</p
>
237 <p
>These were just the top of the iceberg, but I guess this blog post
238 is long enough now. If you would like to help with any of these
239 projects, please get in touch, either directly on the project mailing
240 lists and forums, or with me via email, IRC or Signal. :)
</p
>
242 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
243 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
244 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
249 <title>New oggz release
1.1.2 after
15 years
</title>
250 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/New_oggz_release_1_1_2_after_15_years.html
</link>
251 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/New_oggz_release_1_1_2_after_15_years.html
</guid>
252 <pubDate>Sun,
9 Feb
2025 01:
15:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
253 <description><p
>A little over a week ago, I noticed
254 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/liboggz
">the liboggz
255 package
</a
> on my Debian dashboard had not had a new upstream release
256 for a while. A closer look showed that its last release, version
257 1.1.1, happened in
2010. A few patches had accumulated in the Debian
258 package, and I even noticed that I had passed on these patches to
259 upstream five years ago. A handful crash bugs had been reported
260 against the Debian package, and looking at the upstream repository I
261 even found a few crash bugs reported there too. To add insult to
262 injury, I discovered that upstream had accumulated several fixes in the
263 years between
2010 and now, and many of them had not made their way
264 into the Debian package. I decided enough was enough, and that a new
265 upstream release was needed fixing these nasty crash bugs. Luckily I
266 am also a member of the Xiph team, aka upstream, and could actually go
267 to work immediately to fix it.
</p
>
269 <p
>I started by adding automatic build testing on
270 <a href=
"https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/liboggz
">the Xiph gitlab oggz
271 instance
</a
>, to get a better idea of the state of affairs with the
272 code base. This exposed a few build problems, which I had to fix. In
273 parallel to this, I sent an email announcing my wish for a new release
274 to every person who had committed to the upstream code base since
275 2010, and asked for help doing a new release both on email and on the
276 #xiph IRC channel. Sadly only a fraction of their email providers
277 accepted my email. But Ralph Giles in the Xiph team came to the
278 rescue and provided invaluable help to guide be through the release
279 Xiph process. While this was going on, I spent a few days tracking
280 down the crash bugs with good help from
281 <a href=
"https://www.valgrind.org/
">valgrind
</a
>, and came up with
282 patch proposals to get rid of at least these specific crash bugs. The
283 open issues also had to be checked. Several of them proved to be
284 fixed already, but a few I had to creat patches for. I also checked
285 out the Debian, Arch, Fedora, Suse and Gentoo packages to see if there
286 were patches applied in these Linux distributions that should be
287 passed upstream. The end result was ready yesterday. A new liboggz
288 release, version
1.1.2, was tagged, wrapped up and published on the
289 project page. And today, the new release was uploaded into
292 <p
>You are probably by now curious on what actually changed in the
293 library. I guess the most interesting new feature was support for
294 Opus and VP8. Almost all other changes were stability or
295 documentation fixes. The rest were related to the gitlab continuous
296 integration testing. All in all, this was really a minor update,
297 hence the version bump only from
1.1.1 to to
1.1.2, but it was long
298 overdue and I am very happy that it is out the door.
</p
>
300 <p
>One change proposed upstream was not included this time, as it
301 extended the API and changed some of the existing library methods, and
302 thus require a major SONAME bump and possibly code changes in every
303 program using the library. As I am not that familiar with the code
304 base, I am unsure if I am the right person to evaluate the change.
305 Perhaps later.
</p
>
307 <p
>Since the release was tagged, a few minor fixes has been committed
308 upstream already: automatic testing the cross building to Windows, and
309 documentation updates linking to the correct project page. If a
310 important issue is discovered with this release, I guess a new release
311 might happen soon including the minor fixes. If not, perhaps they can
312 wait fifteen years. :)
</p
>
314 <p
>I would like to send a big thank you to everyone that helped make
315 this release happen, from the people adding fixes upstream over the
316 course of fifteen years, to the ones reporting crash bugs, other bugs
317 and those maintaining the package in various Linux distributions.
318 Thank you very much for your time and interest.
</p
>
320 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
321 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
322 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
327 <title>Frokostseminar om Noark
5 i Oslo fredag
2025-
03-
14</title>
328 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Frokostseminar_om_Noark_5_i_Oslo_fredag_2025_03_14.html
</link>
329 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Frokostseminar_om_Noark_5_i_Oslo_fredag_2025_03_14.html
</guid>
330 <pubDate>Fri,
31 Jan
2025 11:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
331 <description><p
>Nikita-prosjektet, der jeg er involvert, inviterer i samarbeid med
332 forskningsgruppen METAINFO og foreningen NUUG, til et frokostseminar
333 om Noark
5 og Noark
5 Tjenestegrensesnitt fredag
2025-
03-
14. Fokus
334 denne gangen er på bevaring og kassasjon. Seminaret finner sted ved
335 OsloMet, Pilestredet
46. Vi håper å få til videostrømming via
336 Internett av presentasjoner og paneldiskusjon. Oppdatert program og
337 lenker til påmeldingsskjema finner en via
338 <a href=
"https://noark.codeberg.page/noark5-seminars/
2025-
03-
14-noark-workshop.html
">arrangementets infoside
</a
>. Arrangementet er gratis.
340 <p
>Som vanlig, hvis du bruker Bitcoin og ønsker å vise din støtte til
341 det jeg driver med, setter jeg pris på om du sender Bitcoin-donasjoner
343 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>. Merk,
344 betaling med bitcoin er ikke anonymt. :)
</p
>
349 <title>121 packages in Debian mapped to hardware for automatic recommendation
</title>
350 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/
121_packages_in_Debian_mapped_to_hardware_for_automatic_recommendation.html
</link>
351 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/
121_packages_in_Debian_mapped_to_hardware_for_automatic_recommendation.html
</guid>
352 <pubDate>Sun,
19 Jan
2025 12:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
353 <description><p
>For some years now, I have been working on a automatic hardware
354 based package recommendation system for Debian and other Linux
355 distributions. The isenkram system I started on back in
2013 now
356 consist of two subsystems, one locating firmware files using the
357 information provided by apt-file, and one matching hardware to
358 packages using information provided by AppStream. The former is very
359 similar to the mechanism implemented in debian-installer to pick the
360 right firmware packages to install. This post is about the latter
361 system. Thanks to steady progress and good help from both other
362 Debian and upstream developers, I am happy to report that
363 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram
">the Isenkram
364 system
</a
> now are able to recommend
121 packages using information
366 <a href=
"https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Distributions/AppStream/
">AppStream
</a
>.
</p
>
368 <p
>The mapping is done using modalias information provided by the
369 kernel, the same information used by udev when creating device files,
370 and the kernel when deciding which kernel modules to load. To get all
371 the modalias identifiers relevant for your machine, you can run the
372 following command on the command line:
</p
>
375 find /sys/devices -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 sort -u
378 <p
>The modalias identifiers can look something like this:
</p
>
382 cpu:type:x86,ven0000fam0006mod003F:feature:,
0000,
0001,
0002,
0003,
0004,
0005,
0006,
0007,
0008,
0009,
000B,
000C,
000D,
000E,
000F,
0010,
0011,
0013,
0015,
0016,
0017,
0018,
0019,
001A,
001B,
001C,
001D,
001F,
002B,
0034,
003A,
003B,
003D,
0068,
006B,
006C,
006D,
006F,
0070,
0072,
0074,
0075,
0076,
0078,
0079,
007C,
0080,
0081,
0082,
0083,
0084,
0085,
0086,
0087,
0088,
0089,
008B,
008C,
008D,
008E,
008F,
0091,
0092,
0093,
0094,
0095,
0096,
0097,
0098,
0099,
009A,
009B,
009C,
009D,
009E,
00C0,
00C5,
00E1,
00E3,
00EB,
00ED,
00F0,
00F1,
00F3,
00F5,
00F6,
00F9,
00FA,
00FB,
00FD,
00FF,
0100,
0101,
0102,
0103,
0111,
0120,
0121,
0123,
0125,
0127,
0128,
0129,
012A,
012C,
012D,
0140,
0160,
0161,
0165,
016C,
017B,
01C0,
01C1,
01C2,
01C4,
01C5,
01C6,
01F9,
024A,
025A,
025B,
025C,
025F,
0282
383 dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr2.18
.1:bd08/
14/
2023:br2.18:svnDellInc.:pnPowerEdgeR730:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0H21J3:rvrA09:cvnDellInc.:ct23:cvr:skuSKU=NotProvided
384 pci:v00008086d00008D3Bsv00001028sd00000600bc07sc80i00
387 usb:v413CpA001d0000dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00in00
390 <p
>The entries above are a selection of the complete set available on
391 a Dell PowerEdge R730 machine I have access to, to give an idea about
392 the various styles of hardware identifiers presented in the modalias
393 format. When looking up relevant packages in a Debian Testing
394 installation on the same R730, I get this list of packages
398 % sudo isenkram-lookup
400 firmware-nvidia-graphics
407 <p
>The list consist of firmware packages requested by kernel modules,
408 as well packages with program to get the status from the RAID
409 controller and to maintain the LAN console. When the edac-utils
410 package providing tools to check the ECC RAM status will enter testing
411 in a few days, it will also show up as a proposal from isenkram. In
412 addition, once the mfiutil package we uploaded in October get past the
413 NEW processing, it will also propose a tool to configure the RAID
414 controller.
</p
>
416 <p
>Another example is the trusty old Lenovo Thinkpad X230, which have
417 hardware handled by several packages in the archive. This is running
418 on Debian Stable:
</p
>
427 firmware-misc-nonfree
441 <p
>Here there proposal consist of software to handle the camera,
442 bluetooth, network card, wifi card, GPU, fan, fingerprint reader and
443 acceleration sensor on the machine.
</p
>
445 <p
>Here is the complete set of packages currently providing hardware
446 mapping via AppStream in Debian Unstable: air-quality-sensor,
447 alsa-firmware-loaders, antpm, array-info, avarice, avrdude,
448 bmusb-v4l2proxy, brltty, calibre, colorhug-client, concordance-common,
449 consolekit, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux, edac-utils,
450 eegdev-plugins-free, ekeyd, elogind, firmware-amd-graphics,
451 firmware-ath9k-htc, firmware-atheros, firmware-b43-installer,
452 firmware-b43legacy-installer, firmware-bnx2, firmware-bnx2x,
453 firmware-brcm80211, firmware-carl9170, firmware-cavium,
454 firmware-intel-graphics, firmware-intel-misc, firmware-ipw2x00,
455 firmware-ivtv, firmware-iwlwifi, firmware-libertas,
456 firmware-linux-free, firmware-mediatek, firmware-misc-nonfree,
457 firmware-myricom, firmware-netronome, firmware-netxen,
458 firmware-nvidia-graphics, firmware-qcom-soc, firmware-qlogic,
459 firmware-realtek, firmware-ti-connectivity, fpga-icestorm, g810-led,
460 galileo, garmin-forerunner-tools, gkrellm-thinkbat, goldencheetah,
461 gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, i8kutils, imsprog, ledger-wallets-udev,
462 libairspy0, libam7xxx0.1, libbladerf2, libgphoto2-
6t64,
463 libhamlib-utils, libm2k0.9
.0, libmirisdr4, libnxt, libopenxr1-monado,
464 libosmosdr0, librem5-flash-image, librtlsdr0, libticables2-
8,
465 libx52pro0, libykpers-
1-
1, libyubikey-udev, limesuite,
466 linuxcnc-uspace, lomoco, madwimax, media-player-info, megactl, mixxx,
467 mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mu-editor, mustang-plug, nbc, nitrokey-app, nqc,
468 ola, openfpgaloader, openocd, openrazer-driver-dkms, pcmciautils,
469 pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, ponyprog, printer-driver-splix,
470 python-yubico-tools, python3-btchip, qlcplus, rosegarden, scdaemon,
471 sispmctl, solaar, spectools, sunxi-tools, t2n, thinkfan, tlp,
472 tp-smapi-dkms, trezor, tucnak, ubertooth, usbrelay, uuu, viking,
473 w1retap, wsl, xawtv, xinput-calibrator, xserver-xorg-input-wacom and
476 <p
>In addition to these, there are several
477 <a href=
"https://udd.debian.org/cgi-bin/bts-usertags.cgi?user=pere%
40hungry.com
&tag=appstream-modalias
">with
478 patches pending in the Debian bug tracking system
</a
>, and even more
479 where no-one wrote patches yet. Good candiates for the latter are
481 <a href=
"https://udd.debian.org/lintian-tag.cgi?tag=appstream-metadata-missing-modalias-provide
">with
482 udev rules but no AppStream hardware information
</a
>.
</p
>
484 <p
>The isenkram system consist of two packages, isenkram-cli with the
485 command line tools, and isenkram with a GUI background process. The
486 latter will listen for dbus events from udev emitted when new hardware
487 become available (like when inserting a USB dongle or discovering a
488 new bluetooth device), look up the modalias entry for this piece of
489 hardware in AppStream (and a hard coded list of mappings from isenkram
490 - currently working hard to move this list to AppStream), and pop up a
491 dialog proposing to install any not already installed packages
492 supporting this hardware. It work very well today when inserting the
493 LEGO Mindstorms RCX, NXT and EV3 controllers. :) If you want to make
494 sure more hardware related packages get recommended, please help out
495 fixing the remaining packages in Debian to provide AppStream metadata
496 with hardware mappings.
</p
>
498 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
499 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
500 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
505 <title>What is the most supported MIME type in Debian in
2025?
</title>
506 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_in_2025_.html
</link>
507 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_in_2025_.html
</guid>
508 <pubDate>Sat,
18 Jan
2025 10:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
509 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_in_2018_.html
">Seven
</a
>
511 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html
">twelve
</a
>
512 years ago, I measured what the most supported MIME type in Debian
513 was
</a
>, first by analysing the desktop files in all packages in the
514 archive, then by analysing the DEP-
11 AppStream data set. I guess it
515 is time to repeat the measurement, only for unstable as last time:
</p
>
517 <p
><strong
>Debian Unstable:
</strong
></p
>
521 ----- -----------------------
533 36 audio/x-vorbis+ogg
544 <p
>The list was created like this using a sid chroot:
</p
>
547 cat /var/lib/apt/lists/*sid*_dep11_Components-amd64.yml.gz | \
548 zcat | awk
'/^ - \S+\/\S+$/ {print $
2 }
' | sort | \
549 uniq -c | sort -nr | head -
20
552 <p
>It is nice to see that the same number of packages now support PNG
553 and JPEG. Last time JPEG had more support than PNG. Most of the MIME
554 types are known to me, but the
'audio/x-scpls
' one I have no idea what
555 represent, except it being an audio format. To find the packages
556 claiming support for this format, the appstreamcli command from the
557 appstream package can be used:
560 % appstreamcli what-provides mediatype audio/x-scpls | grep Package: | sort -u
561 Package: alsaplayer-common
568 Package: cynthiune.app
573 Package: kylin-burner
575 Package: mediaconch-gui
576 Package: mediainfo-gui
588 Package: soundconverter
595 <p
>Look like several video and auto tools understand the format.
596 Similarly one can check out the number of packages supporting the STL
597 format commonly used for
3D printing:
</p
>
600 % appstreamcli what-provides mediatype model/stl | grep Package: | sort -u
603 Package: open3d-viewer
607 <p
>How strange the
608 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r
">slic3r
</a
> and
609 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r-prusa
">prusa-slicer
</a
>
610 packages do not support STL. Perhaps just missing package metadata?
611 Luckily the amount of package metadata in Debian is getting better,
612 and hopefully this way of locating relevant packages for any file
613 format will be the preferred one soon.
615 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
616 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
617 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
622 <title>The
2025 LinuxCNC Norwegian developer gathering
</title>
623 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/The_2025_LinuxCNC_Norwegian_developer_gathering.html
</link>
624 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/The_2025_LinuxCNC_Norwegian_developer_gathering.html
</guid>
625 <pubDate>Sat,
11 Jan
2025 14:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
626 <description><p
><a href=
"https://linuxcnc.org/
">The LinuxCNC project
</a
> is
627 trotting along. And I believe this great software system for
628 numerical control of machines such as milling machines, lathes, plasma
629 cutters, routers, cutting machines, robots and hexapods, would do even
630 better with more in-person developer gatherings, so we plan to
631 organise such gathering this summer too.
</p
>
633 <p
>This year we would like to invite to a small LinuxCNC and free
634 software fabrication workshop/gathering in Norway this summer for the
635 weekend starting July
4th
2025. New this year is the slightly larger
636 scope, and we invite people also outside the LinuxCNC community to
637 join. As earlier, we suggest to organize it as an
638 <a href=
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference
">unconference
</a
>,
639 where the participants create the program upon arrival.
</p
>
641 <p
>The location is a metal workshop
15 minutes drive away from to the
642 Gardermoen airport (OSL), where there is a lot of space and a hotel only
643 5 minutes away by car. We plan to fire up the barbeque in the evenings.
</p
>
645 <p
>Please let us know if you would like to join. We track the list of
646 participants on
<a href=
"https://pad.efn.no/p/linuxcnc-
2025-norway
">a
647 simple pad
</a
>, please add yourself there if you are interested in joining.
</p
>
649 <p
><a href=
"https://www.nuugfoundation.no/
">The NUUG Foundation
</a
> has on
650 our request offered to handle any money involved with this gathering,
651 in other words holding any sponsor funds and paying any bills.
652 NUUG Foundation is a spinnoff from the NUUG member organisation here
653 in Norway with long ties to the free software and open standards
654 communities.
</p
>
656 <p
>As usual we hope to find sponsors to pay for food, lodging and travel.
</p
>
658 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
659 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
660 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
665 <title>New lsdvd release
0.18 after ten years
</title>
666 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_0_18_after_ten_years.html
</link>
667 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_0_18_after_ten_years.html
</guid>
668 <pubDate>Sat,
21 Dec
2024 10:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
669 <description><p
>The rumors of the death of
670 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/
">the lsdvd project
</a
>
671 is slightly exaggerated. And the last few months, we have been
672 working on fixing and improving it, culminating in a new release last
673 night. This is the list of changes in the new
0.18 release, as
674 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/
59108028/
">announced
675 on the project mailing list
</a
>:
</p
>
679 <li
>Simplified autoconf setup, dropped --enable-debug option.
</li
>
680 <li
>Improved video resolution reporting (
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/patches/
8/
">Fixes #
8</a
>).
</li
>
681 <li
>Applied patches fetched from BSDs (
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/patches/
7/
">Fixes #
7</a
>).
</li
>
682 <li
>Corrected Perl output (
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/patches/
1/
">Fixes #
1</a
>).
</li
>
683 <li
>Adjusted Pan and Scan entries to produce valid XML.
</li
>
684 <li
>Changed --help output from stderr to stdout.
</li
>
685 <li
>Corrected aspect ratio and audio format formatting.
</li
>
686 <li
>Avoid segfault when hitting a NULL pointer in the IFO structure.
</li
>
687 <li
>Change build rules to supress compiler flags, to make it easier to
688 spot warnings.
</li
>
689 <li
>Set default DVD device based on OS (Linux, *BSD, Darwin)
</li
>
690 <li
>Added libdvdread DVDDiscID to output.
</li
>
691 <li
>Corrected typo in longest track value in XML format.
</li
>
692 <li
>Switched XML output to use libxml to avoid string encoding issues.
</li
>
693 <li
>Added simple build time test suite.
</li
>
694 <li
>Cleaned up language code handling and adding missing mapping for
695 language codes
'nb
' and
'nn
'.
</li
>
696 <li
>Added JSON output support using -Oj.
</li
>
699 <p
>The most exciting news to me is easy access to the DVDDiscID, which
700 make it a lot easier to identify DVD duplicates across a large
701 collection of DVDs. During testing it has proved to be very effective
702 ad identifying when DVDs in a DVD box (say all Star Wars movies) is
703 identical to DVDs sold individually (like the same Star Wars movies
704 packaged individually).
</p
>
706 <p
>Because none of the current developers got access to do tarball
707 releases on Sourceforge any more, the release is only available as
708 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/
0.18/tree/
">a git
709 tag
</a
> in the repository. Lets hope it do not take ten years for the
710 next release. The project are discussing to move away from
711 Sourceforge, but it has not yet concluded.
</p
>
713 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
714 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
715 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
720 <title>More than
200 orphaned Debian packages moved to git,
216 to go
</title>
721 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/More_than_200_orphaned_Debian_packages_moved_to_git__216_to_go.html
</link>
722 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/More_than_200_orphaned_Debian_packages_moved_to_git__216_to_go.html
</guid>
723 <pubDate>Thu,
11 Jul
2024 12:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
724 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Time_to_move_orphaned_Debian_packages_to_git.html
">In
725 April
</a
>, I started migrating orphaned Debian packages without any
726 version control system listed in debian/control to git. This morning,
727 my Debian QA page finally reached
200 QA packages migrated. In
728 reality there are a few more, as the packages uploaded by someone else
729 after my initial upload have disappeared from my QA uploads list. As
730 I am running out of steam and will most likely focus on other parts of
731 Debian moving forward, I hope someone else will find time to continue
732 the migration to bring the number of orphaned packages without any
733 version control system down to zero. Here is the updated recipe if
734 someone want to help out.
</p
>
736 <p
>To locate packages to work on, the following one-liner can be used:
</p
>
738 <blockquote
><pre
>
739 PGPASSWORD=
"udd-mirror
" psql --port=
5432 --host=udd-mirror.debian.net \
740 --username=udd-mirror udd -c
"select source from sources \
741 where release =
'sid
' and (vcs_url ilike
'%anonscm.debian.org%
' \
742 OR vcs_browser ilike
'%anonscm.debian.org%
' or vcs_url IS NULL \
743 OR vcs_browser IS NULL) AND maintainer ilike
'%packages@qa.debian.org%
' \
744 order by random() limit
10;
"
745 </pre
></blockquote
>
747 <p
>Pick a random package from the list and run the latest edition of
749 <tt
><a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/images/
2024-
07-
11-debian-snap-to-salsa.sh
">debian-snap-to-salsa
</a
></tt
>
750 with the package name as the argument to prepare a git repository with
751 the existing packaging. This will download old Debian packages from
752 <tt
>snapshot.debian.org
</tt
>. Note that very recent uploads will not
753 be included, so check out the package on
<tt
>tracker.debian.org
</tt
>.
754 Next, run
<tt
>gbp buildpackage --git-ignore-new
</tt
> to verify that
755 the package build as it should, and then visit
756 <a href=
"https://salsa.debian.org/debian/
">https://salsa.debian.org/debian/
</a
>
757 and make sure there is not already a git repository for the package
758 there. I also did
<tt
>git log -p debian/control
</tt
> and look for vcs
759 entries to check if the package used to have a git repository on
760 Alioth, and see if it can be a useful starting point moving forward.
761 If all this check out, I created a new gitlab project below the Debian
762 group on salsa, push the package source there and upload a new version.
763 I tend to also ensure build hardening is enabled, if it prove to be
764 easy, and check if I can easily fix any lintian issues or bug reports.
765 If the process took more than
20 minutes, I dropped it and moved on to
766 another package.
</p
>
768 <p
>If I found patches in debian/patches/ that were not yet passed
769 upstream, I would send an email to make sure upstream know about them.
770 This has proved to be a valuable step, and caused several new releases
771 for software that initially appeared abandoned. :)
</p
>
773 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
774 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
775 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
780 <title>Some notes from the
2024 LinuxCNC Norwegian developer gathering
</title>
781 <link>http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Some_notes_from_the_2024_LinuxCNC_Norwegian_developer_gathering.html
</link>
782 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Some_notes_from_the_2024_LinuxCNC_Norwegian_developer_gathering.html
</guid>
783 <pubDate>Wed,
10 Jul
2024 14:
45:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
784 <description><p
>The Norwegian
<a href=
"https://linuxcnc.org/
">The LinuxCNC
</a
>
785 developer gathering
2024 is over. It was a great and productive
786 weekend, and I am sad that it is over.
</p
>
788 <p
>Regular readers probably still remember what LinuxCNC is, but her
789 is a quick summary for those that forgot? LinuxCNC is a free software
790 system for numerical control of machines such as milling machines,
791 lathes, plasma cutters, routers, cutting machines, robots and
792 hexapods. It eats G-code and produce motor movement and other changes
793 to the physical world, while reading sensor input.
</p
>
795 <p
>I am not quite sure about the total head count, as not all people
796 were present at the gathering the entire weekend, but I believe it was
797 close to
10 people showing their faces at the gathering. The
"hard
798 core
" of the group, who stayed the entire weekend, were two from
799 Norway, two from Germany and one from England. I am happy with the
800 outcome from the gathering. We managed to wrap up a new stable
801 LinuxCNC release
2.9.3 and even tested it on real hardware within
802 minutes of the release. The release notes for
2.9.3 are still being
803 written, but should show up on on the project site in the next few
804 days. We managed to go through around twenty pull requests and merge
805 then into either the stable release (
2.9) or the development branch
806 (master). There are still around thirty pull requests left to
807 process, so we are not out of work yet. We even managed to
808 fix/improve a slightly worn lathe, and experiment with running a
809 mechanical clock using G-code.
</p
>
811 <p
>The evening barbeque worked well both on Saturday and Sunday. It
812 is quite fun to light up a charcoal grill using compressed air. Sadly
813 the weather was not the best, so we stayed indoors most of the
816 <p
>This gathering was made possible partly with sponsoring from both
817 <a href=
"https://www.redpill-linpro.com/
">Redpill Linpro
</a
>,
818 <a href=
"https://debian.org/
">Debian
</a
> and
819 <a href=
"https://nuugfoundation.no/
">NUUG Foundation
</a
>, and we are
820 most grateful for the support. I would also like to thank the local
821 school for lending us some furniture, and of course the rest of the
822 members of the organizers team, Asle and Bosse, for their countless
823 contributions. The gathering was such success that we want to do it
824 again next year.
</p
>
826 <p
>We plan to organize the next Norwegian LinuxCNC developer gathering
827 at the end of June next year, the weekend Friday
27th to Sunday
29th
828 of June
2025. I recommend you reserve the dates on your calendar
829 today. Other related communities are also welcome to join in, for
830 example those working on systems like FreeCAD and opencamlib, as I am
831 sure we have much in common and sharing experiences would be very
832 useful to all involved. We are of course looking for sponsors for
833 this gathering already. The total budget for this gathering was
834 around NOK
25.000 (around EUR
2.300), so our needs are quite modest.
835 Perhaps a machine or tools company would like to help out the free
836 software manufacturing community by sponsoring food, lodging and
837 transport for such gathering?
</p
>
projects / homepage.git / blob