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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28          2nd February 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>My
  32 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
  33 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
  34 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
  35 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
  36 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
  37 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
  38 version too.</p>
  39
  40 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
  41 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
  42 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
  43 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
  44 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
  45 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
  46 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
  47 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
  48
  49 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
  50 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
  51 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
  52 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
  53 it. :)</p>
  54
  55 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
  56 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
  57 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
  58
  59       </div>
  60       <div class="tags">
  61
  62
  63         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>.
  64
  65
  66       </div>
  67     </div>
  68     <div class="padding"></div>
  69
  70     <div class="entry">
  71       <div class="title">
  72         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
  73       </div>
  74       <div class="date">
  75         22nd January 2013
  76       </div>
  77       <div class="body">
  78         <p>Yesterday, I
  79 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
  80 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
  81 pluggable hardware devices, which I
  82 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
  83 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
  84 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
  85 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
  86 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
  87 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
  88 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
  89 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
  90 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
  91 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
  92
  93 <pre>
  94 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
  95 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
  96 </pre>
  97
  98 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
  99 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
 100 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
 101 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
 102
 103 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
 104 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
 105 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
 106 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
 107 word.</p>
 108
 109 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
 110 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
 111 process.</p>
 112
 113 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
 114 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
 115
 116       </div>
 117       <div class="tags">
 118
 119
 120         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
 121
 122
 123       </div>
 124     </div>
 125     <div class="padding"></div>
 126
 127     <div class="entry">
 128       <div class="title">
 129         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
 130       </div>
 131       <div class="date">
 132         21st January 2013
 133       </div>
 134       <div class="body">
 135         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
 136 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
 137 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
 138 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
 139 it, fetch the
 140 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
 141 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
 142 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
 143 autostart script.</p>
 144
 145 <p>The design is simple:</p>
 146
 147 <ul>
 148
 149 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
 150 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
 151
 152 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
 153 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
 154 initially did.</li>
 155
 156 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
 157 the APT database, a database
 158 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
 159 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
 160
 161 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
 162 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
 163 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
 164 package or packages.</li>
 165
 166 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
 167 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
 168
 169 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
 170 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
 171
 172 </ul>
 173
 174 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
 175 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
 176 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
 177 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
 178
 179 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
 180 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
 181 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
 182 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
 183 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
 184
 185 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
 186 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
 187 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
 188 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
 189 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
 190 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
 191 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
 192 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
 193
 194 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
 195 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
 196 '<tt>svn checkout
 197 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
 198 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
 199 devscripts package.</p>
 200
 201 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
 202 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
 203 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
 204 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
 205 instructions</a> for details.</p>
 206
 207       </div>
 208       <div class="tags">
 209
 210
 211         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
 212
 213
 214       </div>
 215     </div>
 216     <div class="padding"></div>
 217
 218     <div class="entry">
 219       <div class="title">
 220         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
 221       </div>
 222       <div class="date">
 223         19th January 2013
 224       </div>
 225       <div class="body">
 226         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
 227 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
 228 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
 229 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
 230 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
 231 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
 232 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
 233 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
 234 not a durable solution.
 235
 236 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
 237 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
 238
 239 <ul>
 240
 241 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
 242   than A4).</li>
 243 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
 244 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
 245 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
 246 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
 247 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
 248 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
 249 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
 250 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
 251 size).</li>
 252 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
 253   X.org packages.</li>
 254 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
 255   the time).
 256
 257 </ul>
 258
 259 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
 260 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
 261 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
 262 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
 263 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
 264 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
 265 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
 266 still be useful.</p>
 267
 268 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
 269 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
 270 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
 271 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
 272 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
 273 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
 274
 275       </div>
 276       <div class="tags">
 277
 278
 279         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>.
 280
 281
 282       </div>
 283     </div>
 284     <div class="padding"></div>
 285
 286     <div class="entry">
 287       <div class="title">
 288         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
 289       </div>
 290       <div class="date">
 291         18th January 2013
 292       </div>
 293       <div class="body">
 294         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
 295 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
 296 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
 297 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
 298 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
 299 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
 300 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
 301
 302 <pre>
 303 #!/usr/bin/python
 304 import sys
 305 import apt
 306 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
 307     cache = apt.Cache()
 308     cache.open(None)
 309     thepkgs = []
 310     for pkg in cache:
 311         version = pkg.candidate
 312         if version is None:
 313             version = pkg.installed
 314         if version is None:
 315             continue
 316         record = version.record
 317         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
 318             continue
 319         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
 320         for t in mime_types:
 321             t = t.rstrip().strip()
 322             if t == mimetype:
 323                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
 324     return thepkgs
 325 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
 326 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
 327     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
 328 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
 329 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
 330     print "  %s" %pkg
 331 </pre>
 332
 333 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
 334
 335 <pre>
 336 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
 337 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
 338   gecko-mediaplayer
 339 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
 340 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
 341   browser-plugin-gnash
 342 %
 343 </pre>
 344
 345 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
 346 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
 347 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
 348 anyone working on adding it?</p>
 349
 350 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
 351 request for icweasel support for this feature is
 352 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
 353 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
 354 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
 355 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
 356
 357       </div>
 358       <div class="tags">
 359
 360
 361         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>.
 362
 363
 364       </div>
 365     </div>
 366     <div class="padding"></div>
 367
 368     <div class="entry">
 369       <div class="title">
 370         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
 371       </div>
 372       <div class="date">
 373         16th January 2013
 374       </div>
 375       <div class="body">
 376         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
 377 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
 378 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
 379 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
 380 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
 381 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
 382 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
 383 downloaded by the browser.</p>
 384
 385 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
 386 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
 387 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
 388 can be found on the
 389 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
 390 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
 391 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
 392 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
 393 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
 394
 395 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
 396
 397 <pre>
 398   count MIME type
 399   ----- -----------------------
 400      32 text/plain
 401      30 audio/mpeg
 402      29 image/png
 403      28 image/jpeg
 404      27 application/ogg
 405      26 audio/x-mp3
 406      25 image/tiff
 407      25 image/gif
 408      22 image/bmp
 409      22 audio/x-wav
 410      20 audio/x-flac
 411      19 audio/x-mpegurl
 412      18 video/x-ms-asf
 413      18 audio/x-musepack
 414      18 audio/x-mpeg
 415      18 application/x-ogg
 416      17 video/mpeg
 417      17 audio/x-scpls
 418      17 audio/ogg
 419      16 video/x-ms-wmv
 420 </pre>
 421
 422 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
 423
 424 <pre>
 425   count MIME type
 426   ----- -----------------------
 427      33 text/plain
 428      32 image/png
 429      32 image/jpeg
 430      29 audio/mpeg
 431      27 image/gif
 432      26 image/tiff
 433      26 application/ogg
 434      25 audio/x-mp3
 435      22 image/bmp
 436      21 audio/x-wav
 437      19 audio/x-mpegurl
 438      19 audio/x-mpeg
 439      18 video/mpeg
 440      18 audio/x-scpls
 441      18 audio/x-flac
 442      18 application/x-ogg
 443      17 video/x-ms-asf
 444      17 text/html
 445      17 audio/x-musepack
 446      16 image/x-xbitmap
 447 </pre>
 448
 449 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
 450
 451 <pre>
 452   count MIME type
 453   ----- -----------------------
 454      31 text/plain
 455      31 image/png
 456      31 image/jpeg
 457      29 audio/mpeg
 458      28 application/ogg
 459      27 image/gif
 460      26 image/tiff
 461      26 audio/x-mp3
 462      23 audio/x-wav
 463      22 image/bmp
 464      21 audio/x-flac
 465      20 audio/x-mpegurl
 466      19 audio/x-mpeg
 467      18 video/x-ms-asf
 468      18 video/mpeg
 469      18 audio/x-scpls
 470      18 application/x-ogg
 471      17 audio/x-musepack
 472      16 video/x-ms-wmv
 473      16 video/x-msvideo
 474 </pre>
 475
 476 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
 477 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
 478 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
 479 issues.</p>
 480
 481 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
 482 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
 483
 484       </div>
 485       <div class="tags">
 486
 487
 488         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>.
 489
 490
 491       </div>
 492     </div>
 493     <div class="padding"></div>
 494
 495     <div class="entry">
 496       <div class="title">
 497         <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>
 498       </div>
 499       <div class="date">
 500         15th January 2013
 501       </div>
 502       <div class="body">
 503         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
 504 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
 505 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
 506 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
 507 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
 508 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
 509 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
 510 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
 511 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
 512 packages.</p>
 513
 514 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
 515 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
 516 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
 517 modalias.</p>
 518
 519 <p><blockquote>
 520 Package: package-name
 521 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
 522 </blockquote></p>
 523
 524 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
 525 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
 526
 527 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
 528 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
 529
 530 <p><blockquote>
 531 Package: cheese
 532 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
 533 </blockquote></p>
 534
 535 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
 536 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
 537
 538 <p><blockquote>
 539 Package: pcmciautils
 540 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
 541 </blockquote></p>
 542
 543 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
 544 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
 545
 546 <p><blockquote>
 547 Package: colorhug-client
 548 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
 549 </blockquote></p>
 550
 551 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
 552 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
 553 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
 554
 555 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
 556 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
 557 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
 558 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
 559 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
 560 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
 561 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
 562 Raring.</p>
 563
 564 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
 565 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
 566 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
 567 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
 568 try the
 569 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
 570 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
 571 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
 572 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
 573
 574 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
 575 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
 576
 577 <p><blockquote>
 578 % ./hw-support-lookup
 579 <br>yubikey-personalization
 580 <br>%
 581 </blockquote></p>
 582
 583 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
 584 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
 585
 586 <p><blockquote>
 587 % ./hw-support-lookup
 588 <br>pcmciautils
 589 <br>%
 590 </blockquote></p>
 591
 592 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
 593 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
 594 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
 595
 596 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
 597 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
 598 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
 599 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
 600 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
 601 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
 602 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
 603 see if it work.</p>
 604
 605 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
 606 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
 607 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
 608 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
 609
 610       </div>
 611       <div class="tags">
 612
 613
 614         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
 615
 616
 617       </div>
 618     </div>
 619     <div class="padding"></div>
 620
 621     <div class="entry">
 622       <div class="title">
 623         <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>
 624       </div>
 625       <div class="date">
 626         14th January 2013
 627       </div>
 628       <div class="body">
 629         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
 630 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
 631 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
 632 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
 633 in
 634 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
 635 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
 636
 637 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
 638
 639 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
 640 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
 641 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
 642 &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;,
 643 &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
 644 &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;.
 645
 646 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
 647 this shell script:</p>
 648
 649 <pre>
 650 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
 651 </pre>
 652
 653 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
 654 using modinfo:</p>
 655
 656 <pre>
 657 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
 658 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
 659 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
 660 %
 661 </pre>
 662
 663 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
 664
 665 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
 666 Bridge memory controller:</p>
 667
 668 <p><blockquote>
 669 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
 670 </blockquote></p>
 671
 672 <p>This represent these values:</p>
 673
 674 <pre>
 675  v   00008086  (vendor)
 676  d   00002770  (device)
 677  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
 678  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
 679  bc  06        (bus class)
 680  sc  00        (bus subclass)
 681  i   00        (interface)
 682 </pre>
 683
 684 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
 685 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
 686 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
 687 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
 688
 689 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
 690 means.</p>
 691
 692 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
 693
 694 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
 695 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
 696
 697 <p><blockquote>
 698 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
 699 </blockquote></p>
 700
 701 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
 702
 703 <pre>
 704  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
 705  p    0001  (device product)
 706  d    0206  (bcddevice)
 707  dc     09  (device class)
 708  dsc    00  (device subclass)
 709  dp     00  (device protocol)
 710  ic     09  (interface class)
 711  isc    00  (interface subclass)
 712  ip     00  (interface protocol)
 713 </pre>
 714
 715 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
 716 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
 717 these alias entries show up:</p>
 718
 719 <p><blockquote>
 720 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
 721 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
 722 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
 723 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
 724 </blockquote></p>
 725
 726 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
 727 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
 728 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
 729
 730 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
 731
 732 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
 733 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
 734
 735 <p><blockquote>
 736 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
 737 </blockquote></p>
 738
 739 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
 740
 741 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
 742
 743 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
 744 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
 745 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
 746
 747 <p><blockquote>
 748 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
 749 </blockquote></p>
 750
 751 <p>The values present are</p>
 752
 753 <pre>
 754  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
 755  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
 756  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
 757  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
 758  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
 759  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
 760  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
 761  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
 762  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
 763  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
 764  ct   10             (chassis type)
 765  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
 766 </pre>
 767
 768 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
 769 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
 770
 771 <pre>
 772   3 Desktop
 773   4 Low Profile Desktop
 774   5 Pizza Box
 775   6 Mini Tower
 776   7 Tower
 777   8 Portable
 778   9 Laptop
 779  10 Notebook
 780  11 Hand Held
 781  12 Docking Station
 782  13 All In One
 783  14 Sub Notebook
 784  15 Space-saving
 785  16 Lunch Box
 786  17 Main Server Chassis
 787  18 Expansion Chassis
 788  19 Sub Chassis
 789  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
 790  21 Peripheral Chassis
 791  22 RAID Chassis
 792  23 Rack Mount Chassis
 793  24 Sealed-case PC
 794  25 Multi-system
 795  26 CompactPCI
 796  27 AdvancedTCA
 797  28 Blade
 798  29 Blade Enclosing
 799 </pre>
 800
 801 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
 802 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
 803 claim it is a desktop.</p>
 804
 805 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
 806
 807 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
 808 test machine:</p>
 809
 810 <p><blockquote>
 811 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
 812 </blockquote></p>
 813
 814 <p>The values present are</p>
 815
 816 <pre>
 817   ty  01  (type)
 818   pr  00  (prototype)
 819   id  00  (id)
 820   ex  00  (extra)
 821 </pre>
 822
 823 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
 824 the valid values are.</p>
 825
 826 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
 827
 828 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
 829 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
 830 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
 831 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
 832 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
 833 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
 834 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
 835
 836 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
 837
 838 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
 839 one can use the following shell script:</p>
 840
 841 <pre>
 842   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
 843     echo "$id" ; \
 844     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
 845   done
 846 </pre>
 847
 848 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
 849 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
 850
 851 <pre>
 852   acpi:ACPI0003:
 853     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
 854   acpi:device:
 855   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
 856   acpi:IBM0068:
 857     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
 858     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
 859     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
 860     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
 861   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
 862     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
 863     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
 864     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
 865   [...]
 866 </pre>
 867
 868 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
 869 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
 870 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
 871 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
 872
 873 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
 874 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
 875 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
 876
 877       </div>
 878       <div class="tags">
 879
 880
 881         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
 882
 883
 884       </div>
 885     </div>
 886     <div class="padding"></div>
 887
 888     <div class="entry">
 889       <div class="title">
 890         <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>
 891       </div>
 892       <div class="date">
 893         10th January 2013
 894       </div>
 895       <div class="body">
 896         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
 897 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
 898 Launcher and updated the Debian package
 899 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
 900 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
 901 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
 902 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
 903 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
 904 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
 905 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
 906 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
 907 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
 908 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
 909 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
 910 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
 911 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
 912 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
 913 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
 914
 915       </div>
 916       <div class="tags">
 917
 918
 919         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>.
 920
 921
 922       </div>
 923     </div>
 924     <div class="padding"></div>
 925
 926     <div class="entry">
 927       <div class="title">
 928         <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>
 929       </div>
 930       <div class="date">
 931          9th January 2013
 932       </div>
 933       <div class="body">
 934         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
 935 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
 936 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
 937 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
 938 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
 939 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
 940 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
 941 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
 942 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
 943 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
 944 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
 945
 946 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
 947 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
 948 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
 949 simple:
 950
 951 <ul>
 952
 953 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
 954   starting when a user log in.</li>
 955
 956 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
 957   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
 958
 959 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
 960   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
 961   packages.</li>
 962
 963 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
 964   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
 965
 966 </ul>
 967
 968 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
 969 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
 970 discover database to find packages and
 971 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
 972 packages.</p>
 973
 974 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
 975 draft package is now checked into
 976 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
 977 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
 978 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
 979 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
 980 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
 981 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
 982 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
 983 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
 984 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
 985 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
 986 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
 987 because of the freeze).</p>
 988
 989 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
 990 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
 991 inserted):</p>
 992
 993 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
 994
 995 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
 996 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
 997 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
 998
 999 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
1000 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
1001 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
1002 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
1003 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
1004 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
1005 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
1006
1007 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
1008 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
1009 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
1010 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
1011 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
1012 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
1013 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
1014 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
1015 not be installed?</p>
1016
1017 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
1018 please send me an email. :)</p>
1019
1020       </div>
1021       <div class="tags">
1022
1023
1024         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1025
1026
1027       </div>
1028     </div>
1029     <div class="padding"></div>
1030
1031     <div class="entry">
1032       <div class="title">
1033         <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>
1034       </div>
1035       <div class="date">
1036          2nd January 2013
1037       </div>
1038       <div class="body">
1039         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
1040 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
1041 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
1042 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
1043 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
1044 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
1045 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
1046 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
1047 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
1048 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
1049
1050 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
1051 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
1052 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
1053
1054       </div>
1055       <div class="tags">
1056
1057
1058         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>.
1059
1060
1061       </div>
1062     </div>
1063     <div class="padding"></div>
1064
1065     <div class="entry">
1066       <div class="title">
1067         <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>
1068       </div>
1069       <div class="date">
1070         25th December 2012
1071       </div>
1072       <div class="body">
1073         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
1074 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
1075
1076 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
1077 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
1078 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
1079 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
1080 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
1081 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
1082 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
1083 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
1084 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
1085 name.</p>
1086
1087 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
1088 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
1089 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
1090
1091 <blockquote><pre>
1092 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
1093 cd bitcoin
1094 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
1095 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
1096 </pre></blockquote>
1097
1098 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
1099 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
1100 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
1101 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
1102 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
1103 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
1104 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
1105 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
1106 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
1107
1108 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1109 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1110 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1111
1112       </div>
1113       <div class="tags">
1114
1115
1116         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>.
1117
1118
1119       </div>
1120     </div>
1121     <div class="padding"></div>
1122
1123     <div class="entry">
1124       <div class="title">
1125         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
1126       </div>
1127       <div class="date">
1128         21st December 2012
1129       </div>
1130       <div class="body">
1131         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
1132 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
1133 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
1134 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
1135 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
1136 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
1137 is now maintained by a
1138 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
1139 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
1140 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
1141 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
1142 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
1143 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
1144 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
1145 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
1146 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
1147 Corallo in a
1148 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
1149 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
1150 Debian package.</p>
1151
1152 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
1153 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
1154 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
1155 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
1156 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
1157 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
1158 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
1159 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
1160 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
1161 new version to unstable.
1162
1163 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
1164 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
1165 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
1166 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
1167 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
1168 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
1169 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
1170 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
1171 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
1172 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
1173 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
1174 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
1175 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
1176 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
1177 have not tested them.</p>
1178
1179 <p>My
1180 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
1181 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
1182 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
1183 years ago, as can be
1184 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
1185 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
1186 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
1187 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
1188 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
1189 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
1190 the same address as last time,
1191 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1192
1193       </div>
1194       <div class="tags">
1195
1196
1197         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>.
1198
1199
1200       </div>
1201     </div>
1202     <div class="padding"></div>
1203
1204     <div class="entry">
1205       <div class="title">
1206         <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>
1207       </div>
1208       <div class="date">
1209          7th September 2012
1210       </div>
1211       <div class="body">
1212         <p>As I
1213 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
1214 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
1215 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
1216 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
1217 repository for the project</a>.</p>
1218
1219 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
1220 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
1221 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
1222 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
1223
1224 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
1225 PostScript formats at
1226 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
1227 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
1228
1229       </div>
1230       <div class="tags">
1231
1232
1233         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>.
1234
1235
1236       </div>
1237     </div>
1238     <div class="padding"></div>
1239
1240     <div class="entry">
1241       <div class="title">
1242         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
1243       </div>
1244       <div class="date">
1245         16th August 2012
1246       </div>
1247       <div class="body">
1248         <p>I dag fyller
1249 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
1250 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
1251 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
1252
1253       </div>
1254       <div class="tags">
1255
1256
1257         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>.
1258
1259
1260       </div>
1261     </div>
1262     <div class="padding"></div>
1263
1264     <div class="entry">
1265       <div class="title">
1266         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
1267       </div>
1268       <div class="date">
1269         24th June 2012
1270       </div>
1271       <div class="body">
1272         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
1273 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
1274 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
1275 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
1276 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
1277 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
1278 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
1279 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
1280 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
1281 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
1282 missing in my book.</p>
1283
1284 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
1285 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
1286 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
1287 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
1288 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
1289 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
1290 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
1291
1292       </div>
1293       <div class="tags">
1294
1295
1296         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>.
1297
1298
1299       </div>
1300     </div>
1301     <div class="padding"></div>
1302
1303     <div class="entry">
1304       <div class="title">
1305         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
1306       </div>
1307       <div class="date">
1308         21st November 2011
1309       </div>
1310       <div class="body">
1311         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
1312 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
1313 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
1314 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
1315 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
1316 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
1317 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
1318 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
1319 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
1320 the tools to do so.</p>
1321
1322 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
1323 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
1324 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
1325 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
1326
1327 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
1328 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
1329 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
1330 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
1331 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
1332 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
1333 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
1334 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
1335
1336 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
1337 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
1338 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
1339
1340 <p><pre>
1341 #!/usr/bin/perl
1342 use strict;
1343 use warnings;
1344 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
1345 BEGIN {
1346     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
1347     my %rhelmodules = (
1348         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
1349         );
1350     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
1351         eval "use $module;";
1352         if ($@) {
1353             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
1354             system("yum install -y $pkg");
1355             eval "use $module;";
1356         }
1357     }
1358 }
1359 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
1360
1361 upgrade_dell();
1362
1363 exit 0;
1364
1365 sub run_firmware_script {
1366     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
1367     unless ($script) {
1368         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
1369         exit 1
1370     }
1371     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
1372
1373     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
1374         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
1375     } else {
1376         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
1377     }
1378 }
1379
1380 sub run_firmware_scripts {
1381     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
1382     # Run firmware packages
1383     for my $dir (@dirs) {
1384         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
1385         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
1386         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
1387             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
1388             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
1389         }
1390         closedir $dh;
1391     }
1392 }
1393
1394 sub download {
1395     my $url = shift;
1396     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
1397     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
1398 }
1399
1400 sub upgrade_dell {
1401     my @dirs;
1402     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
1403     chomp $product;
1404
1405     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
1406
1407         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
1408         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
1409
1410         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
1411             CLEANUP => 1
1412             );
1413         chdir($tmpdir);
1414         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
1415         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
1416         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
1417         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
1418         my $fwopts = "-q";
1419         if (@paths) {
1420             for my $url (@paths) {
1421                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
1422             }
1423             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
1424         } else {
1425             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
1426             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
1427         }
1428         chdir('/');
1429     } else {
1430         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
1431         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
1432     }
1433 }
1434
1435 sub fetch_dell_fw {
1436     my $path = shift;
1437     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
1438     download($url);
1439 }
1440
1441 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
1442 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
1443 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
1444 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
1445     my $filename = shift;
1446
1447     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
1448     chomp $product;
1449     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
1450
1451     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
1452
1453     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
1454     my @paths;
1455     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
1456         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
1457         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
1458         my $oscode;
1459         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
1460             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
1461         } else {
1462             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
1463         }
1464         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
1465         {
1466             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
1467         }
1468     }
1469     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
1470         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
1471
1472         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
1473         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
1474
1475         my $cpath = $component->{path};
1476         for my $path (@paths) {
1477             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
1478                 push(@paths, $cpath);
1479             }
1480         }
1481     }
1482     return @paths;
1483 }
1484 </pre>
1485
1486 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
1487 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
1488 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
1489 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
1490 outdated.</p>
1491
1492       </div>
1493       <div class="tags">
1494
1495
1496         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>.
1497
1498
1499       </div>
1500     </div>
1501     <div class="padding"></div>
1502
1503     <div class="entry">
1504       <div class="title">
1505         <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>
1506       </div>
1507       <div class="date">
1508          4th August 2011
1509       </div>
1510       <div class="body">
1511         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
1512 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
1513 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
1514 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
1515 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
1516 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
1517 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
1518 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
1519 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
1520
1521 <p><blockquote>
1522 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
1523 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
1524 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
1525 </blockquote></p>
1526
1527 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
1528 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
1529 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
1530 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
1531 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
1532 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
1533 hard to explain.</p>
1534
1535 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
1536 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
1537 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
1538 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
1539 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
1540 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
1541 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
1542 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
1543 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
1544 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
1545 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
1546 mode).</p>
1547
1548 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
1549 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
1550 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
1551 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
1552 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
1553 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
1554 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
1555 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
1556 after visiting single user mode.</p>
1557
1558 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
1559 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
1560 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
1561 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
1562 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
1563 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
1564 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
1565 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
1566
1567 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
1568 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
1569 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
1570
1571       </div>
1572       <div class="tags">
1573
1574
1575         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>.
1576
1577
1578       </div>
1579     </div>
1580     <div class="padding"></div>
1581
1582     <div class="entry">
1583       <div class="title">
1584         <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>
1585       </div>
1586       <div class="date">
1587         30th July 2011
1588       </div>
1589       <div class="body">
1590         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
1591 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
1592 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
1593 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
1594 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
1595 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
1596 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
1597 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
1598 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
1599 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
1600 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
1601 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
1602 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
1603
1604 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
1605 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
1606 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
1607 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
1608 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
1609 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
1610 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
1611 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
1612 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
1613
1614 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
1615 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
1616 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
1617 is presented.</p>
1618
1619 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
1620 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
1621 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
1622 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
1623 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
1624 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
1625 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
1626 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
1627 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
1628 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
1629 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
1630 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
1631 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
1632 find time to push this forward.</p>
1633
1634       </div>
1635       <div class="tags">
1636
1637
1638         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>.
1639
1640
1641       </div>
1642     </div>
1643     <div class="padding"></div>
1644
1645     <div class="entry">
1646       <div class="title">
1647         <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>
1648       </div>
1649       <div class="date">
1650         29th July 2011
1651       </div>
1652       <div class="body">
1653         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
1654 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
1655 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
1656 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
1657 issues.</p>
1658
1659 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
1660 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
1661 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
1662
1663 <ol>
1664
1665 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
1666 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
1667 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
1668 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
1669 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
1670 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
1671 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
1672 Debian.</li>
1673
1674 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
1675 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
1676 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
1677 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
1678 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
1679 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
1680 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
1681 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
1682 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
1683 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
1684 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
1685 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
1686 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
1687
1688 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
1689 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
1690 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
1691 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
1692 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
1693 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
1694 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
1695 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
1696 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
1697 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
1698
1699 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
1700 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
1701 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
1702 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
1703 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
1704 latter behaviour.</li>
1705
1706 </ol>
1707
1708 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
1709 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
1710 it do not matter much.</p>
1711
1712 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
1713 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
1714 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
1715
1716       </div>
1717       <div class="tags">
1718
1719
1720         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>.
1721
1722
1723       </div>
1724     </div>
1725     <div class="padding"></div>
1726
1727     <div class="entry">
1728       <div class="title">
1729         <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>
1730       </div>
1731       <div class="date">
1732         26th July 2011
1733       </div>
1734       <div class="body">
1735         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
1736 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
1737 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
1738 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
1739 security support for a few years.</p>
1740
1741 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
1742 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
1743 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
1744 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
1745 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
1746 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
1747 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
1748 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
1749 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
1750 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
1751 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
1752 easier in the future.</p>
1753
1754 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
1755 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
1756 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
1757 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
1758 do not have time for.</p>
1759
1760       </div>
1761       <div class="tags">
1762
1763
1764         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>.
1765
1766
1767       </div>
1768     </div>
1769     <div class="padding"></div>
1770
1771     <div class="entry">
1772       <div class="title">
1773         <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>
1774       </div>
1775       <div class="date">
1776          3rd April 2011
1777       </div>
1778       <div class="body">
1779         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
1780 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
1781 update in English.</p>
1782
1783 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
1784 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
1785 of the British service
1786 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
1787 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
1788 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
1789 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
1790 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
1791 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
1792 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
1793 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
1794 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
1795 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
1796 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
1797 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
1798 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
1799
1800 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
1801 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
1802 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
1803 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
1804 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
1805 public infrastructure.</p>
1806
1807 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
1808 such service?</p>
1809
1810       </div>
1811       <div class="tags">
1812
1813
1814         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>.
1815
1816
1817       </div>
1818     </div>
1819     <div class="padding"></div>
1820
1821     <div class="entry">
1822       <div class="title">
1823         <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>
1824       </div>
1825       <div class="date">
1826         28th January 2011
1827       </div>
1828       <div class="body">
1829         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
1830 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
1831 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
1832 available on the Internet, and check our locally
1833 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
1834 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
1835 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
1836 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
1837 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
1838 out which security holes were present in our free software
1839 collection.</p>
1840
1841 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
1842 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
1843 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
1844 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
1845 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
1846 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
1847 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
1848 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
1849 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
1850 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
1851 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
1852 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
1853 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
1854 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
1855 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
1856 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
1857
1858 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
1859 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
1860 check out, one could look up
1861 <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
1862 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
1863 The most recent one is
1864 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
1865 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
1866 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
1867
1868 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
1869 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
1870 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
1871 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
1872 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
1873 security issues out.</p>
1874
1875 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
1876 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
1877 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
1878 RHEL is providing
1879 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
1880 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
1881 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
1882
1883 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
1884 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
1885 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
1886 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
1887 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
1888 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
1889 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
1890 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
1891 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
1892 established soon.</p>
1893
1894 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
1895 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
1896 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
1897 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
1898 for their packages.</p>
1899
1900       </div>
1901       <div class="tags">
1902
1903
1904         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>.
1905
1906
1907       </div>
1908     </div>
1909     <div class="padding"></div>
1910
1911     <div class="entry">
1912       <div class="title">
1913         <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>
1914       </div>
1915       <div class="date">
1916         23rd January 2011
1917       </div>
1918       <div class="body">
1919         <p>In the
1920 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
1921 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
1922 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
1923 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
1924 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
1925 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
1926 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
1927 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
1928 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
1929 one of my machines like this:</p>
1930
1931 <pre>
1932 loaded modules:
1933 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
1934 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
1935 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
1936 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
1937 10de:03ec pata_amd
1938 10de:03f6 sata_nv
1939 1022:1103 k8temp
1940 109e:036e bttv
1941 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
1942 11ab:4364 sky2
1943 </pre>
1944
1945 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
1946 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
1947
1948 <pre>
1949 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
1950     echo loaded pci modules:
1951     (
1952         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
1953         for address in * ; do
1954             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
1955                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
1956                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
1957                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
1958                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
1959                     echo "$id $module"
1960                 fi
1961             fi
1962         done
1963     )
1964     echo
1965 fi
1966 </pre>
1967
1968 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
1969 mappings:</p>
1970
1971 <pre>
1972 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
1973     echo loaded usb modules:
1974     (
1975         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
1976         for address in * ; do
1977             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
1978                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
1979                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
1980                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
1981                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
1982                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
1983                         echo "$id $module"
1984                     fi
1985                 fi
1986             fi
1987         done
1988     )
1989     echo
1990 fi
1991 </pre>
1992
1993 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
1994 well.</p>
1995
1996       </div>
1997       <div class="tags">
1998
1999
2000         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>.
2001
2002
2003       </div>
2004     </div>
2005     <div class="padding"></div>
2006
2007     <div class="entry">
2008       <div class="title">
2009         <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>
2010       </div>
2011       <div class="date">
2012         22nd December 2010
2013       </div>
2014       <div class="body">
2015         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
2016 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
2017 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
2018 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
2019 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
2020 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
2021 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
2022 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
2023 university.</p>
2024
2025 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
2026 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
2027 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
2028 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
2029 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
2030 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
2031 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
2032 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
2033
2034 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
2035 I perform on a new model.</p>
2036
2037 <ul>
2038
2039 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
2040 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
2041 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
2042
2043 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
2044 installation, X.org is working.</li>
2045
2046 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
2047 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
2048 reported by the program.</li>
2049
2050 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
2051 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
2052 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
2053 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
2054 normally test this by playing
2055 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
2056 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
2057
2058 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
2059 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
2060
2061 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
2062 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
2063
2064 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
2065 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
2066
2067 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
2068 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
2069 few.</li>
2070
2071 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
2072 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
2073 notice this.</li>
2074
2075 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
2076 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
2077 resume.</li>
2078
2079 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
2080 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
2081 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
2082 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
2083 not.</li>
2084
2085 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
2086 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
2087 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
2088 existence.</li>
2089
2090 </ul>
2091
2092 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
2093 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
2094 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
2095 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
2096 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
2097 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
2098 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
2099 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
2100
2101       </div>
2102       <div class="tags">
2103
2104
2105         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>.
2106
2107
2108       </div>
2109     </div>
2110     <div class="padding"></div>
2111
2112     <div class="entry">
2113       <div class="title">
2114         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
2115       </div>
2116       <div class="date">
2117         11th December 2010
2118       </div>
2119       <div class="body">
2120         <p>As I continue to explore
2121 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
2122 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
2123 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
2124
2125 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
2126 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
2127 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
2128 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
2129 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
2130 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
2131 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
2132 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
2133 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
2134 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
2135 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
2136 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
2137 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
2138 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
2139 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
2140 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
2141 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
2142 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
2143 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
2144 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
2145
2146 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
2147 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
2148 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
2149 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
2150 If the Skolelinux foundation
2151 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
2152 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
2153 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
2154 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
2155 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
2156 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
2157 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
2158 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
2159
2160 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
2161 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
2162 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
2163 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
2164 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
2165 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
2166 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
2167 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
2168 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
2169 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
2170 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
2171 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
2172 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
2173 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
2174 currencies.</p>
2175
2176 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
2177 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
2178 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
2179 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
2180 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
2181 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
2182 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
2183 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
2184 BitCoins.  Check out
2185 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
2186 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
2187 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
2188 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
2189 yet.</p>
2190
2191 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
2192 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
2193 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
2194 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
2195 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
2196
2197       </div>
2198       <div class="tags">
2199
2200
2201         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>.
2202
2203
2204       </div>
2205     </div>
2206     <div class="padding"></div>
2207
2208     <div class="entry">
2209       <div class="title">
2210         <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>
2211       </div>
2212       <div class="date">
2213         10th December 2010
2214       </div>
2215       <div class="body">
2216         <p>With this weeks lawless
2217 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
2218 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
2219 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
2220 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
2221 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
2222 A blog post from
2223 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
2224 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
2225 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
2226 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
2227 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
2228 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
2229 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
2230
2231 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
2232 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
2233 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
2234 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
2235 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
2236 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
2237 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
2238 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
2239 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
2240 Debian</a> soon.</p>
2241
2242 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
2243 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
2244 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
2245 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
2246 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
2247 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
2248 you can even get
2249 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
2250 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
2251 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
2252 on the current exchange rates.</p>
2253
2254 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
2255 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
2256 donations to the address
2257 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
2258
2259       </div>
2260       <div class="tags">
2261
2262
2263         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>.
2264
2265
2266       </div>
2267     </div>
2268     <div class="padding"></div>
2269
2270     <div class="entry">
2271       <div class="title">
2272         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
2273       </div>
2274       <div class="date">
2275         27th November 2010
2276       </div>
2277       <div class="body">
2278         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
2279 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
2280 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
2281 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
2282 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
2283 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
2284 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
2285 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
2286
2287 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
2288 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
2289 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
2290 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
2291 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
2292 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
2293 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
2294 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
2295 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
2296 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
2297 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
2298
2299 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
2300 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
2301 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
2302 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
2303 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
2304 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
2305 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
2306 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
2307 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
2308 what is going on.</p>
2309
2310       </div>
2311       <div class="tags">
2312
2313
2314         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>.
2315
2316
2317       </div>
2318     </div>
2319     <div class="padding"></div>
2320
2321     <div class="entry">
2322       <div class="title">
2323         <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>
2324       </div>
2325       <div class="date">
2326         22nd November 2010
2327       </div>
2328       <div class="body">
2329         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
2330 upgrade testing of the
2331 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
2332 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
2333 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
2334 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
2335
2336 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
2337
2338 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
2339
2340 <blockquote><p>
2341   apache2.2-bin
2342   aptdaemon
2343   baobab
2344   binfmt-support
2345   browser-plugin-gnash
2346   cheese-common
2347   cli-common
2348   cups-pk-helper
2349   dmz-cursor-theme
2350   empathy
2351   empathy-common
2352   freedesktop-sound-theme
2353   freeglut3
2354   gconf-defaults-service
2355   gdm-themes
2356   gedit-plugins
2357   geoclue
2358   geoclue-hostip
2359   geoclue-localnet
2360   geoclue-manual
2361   geoclue-yahoo
2362   gnash
2363   gnash-common
2364   gnome
2365   gnome-backgrounds
2366   gnome-cards-data
2367   gnome-codec-install
2368   gnome-core
2369   gnome-desktop-environment
2370   gnome-disk-utility
2371   gnome-screenshot
2372   gnome-search-tool
2373   gnome-session-canberra
2374   gnome-system-log
2375   gnome-themes-extras
2376   gnome-themes-more
2377   gnome-user-share
2378   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
2379   gstreamer0.10-tools
2380   gtk2-engines
2381   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
2382   gtk2-engines-smooth
2383   hamster-applet
2384   libapache2-mod-dnssd
2385   libapr1
2386   libaprutil1
2387   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
2388   libaprutil1-ldap
2389   libart2.0-cil
2390   libboost-date-time1.42.0
2391   libboost-python1.42.0
2392   libboost-thread1.42.0
2393   libchamplain-0.4-0
2394   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
2395   libcheese-gtk18
2396   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
2397   libcryptui0
2398   libdiscid0
2399   libelf1
2400   libepc-1.0-2
2401   libepc-common
2402   libepc-ui-1.0-2
2403   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
2404   libfreerdp0
2405   libgconf2.0-cil
2406   libgdata-common
2407   libgdata7
2408   libgdu-gtk0
2409   libgee2
2410   libgeoclue0
2411   libgexiv2-0
2412   libgif4
2413   libglade2.0-cil
2414   libglib2.0-cil
2415   libgmime2.4-cil
2416   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
2417   libgnome2.24-cil
2418   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
2419   libgpod-common
2420   libgpod4
2421   libgtk2.0-cil
2422   libgtkglext1
2423   libgtksourceview2.0-common
2424   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
2425   libmono-addins0.2-cil
2426   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
2427   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
2428   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
2429   libmono-posix2.0-cil
2430   libmono-security2.0-cil
2431   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
2432   libmono-system2.0-cil
2433   libmtp8
2434   libmusicbrainz3-6
2435   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
2436   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
2437   libopal3.6.8
2438   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
2439   libpt2.6.7
2440   libpython2.6
2441   librpm1
2442   librpmio1
2443   libsdl1.2debian
2444   libsrtp0
2445   libssh-4
2446   libtelepathy-farsight0
2447   libtelepathy-glib0
2448   libtidy-0.99-0
2449   media-player-info
2450   mesa-utils
2451   mono-2.0-gac
2452   mono-gac
2453   mono-runtime
2454   nautilus-sendto
2455   nautilus-sendto-empathy
2456   p7zip-full
2457   pkg-config
2458   python-aptdaemon
2459   python-aptdaemon-gtk
2460   python-axiom
2461   python-beautifulsoup
2462   python-bugbuddy
2463   python-clientform
2464   python-coherence
2465   python-configobj
2466   python-crypto
2467   python-cupshelpers
2468   python-elementtree
2469   python-epsilon
2470   python-evolution
2471   python-feedparser
2472   python-gdata
2473   python-gdbm
2474   python-gst0.10
2475   python-gtkglext1
2476   python-gtksourceview2
2477   python-httplib2
2478   python-louie
2479   python-mako
2480   python-markupsafe
2481   python-mechanize
2482   python-nevow
2483   python-notify
2484   python-opengl
2485   python-openssl
2486   python-pam
2487   python-pkg-resources
2488   python-pyasn1
2489   python-pysqlite2
2490   python-rdflib
2491   python-serial
2492   python-tagpy
2493   python-twisted-bin
2494   python-twisted-conch
2495   python-twisted-core
2496   python-twisted-web
2497   python-utidylib
2498   python-webkit
2499   python-xdg
2500   python-zope.interface
2501   remmina
2502   remmina-plugin-data
2503   remmina-plugin-rdp
2504   remmina-plugin-vnc
2505   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
2506   rhythmbox-plugins
2507   rpm-common
2508   rpm2cpio
2509   seahorse-plugins
2510   shotwell
2511   software-center
2512   system-config-printer-udev
2513   telepathy-gabble
2514   telepathy-mission-control-5
2515   telepathy-salut
2516   tomboy
2517   totem
2518   totem-coherence
2519   totem-mozilla
2520   totem-plugins
2521   transmission-common
2522   xdg-user-dirs
2523   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
2524   xserver-xephyr
2525 </p></blockquote>
2526
2527 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
2528
2529 <blockquote><p>
2530   cheese
2531   ekiga
2532   eog
2533   epiphany-extensions
2534   evolution-exchange
2535   fast-user-switch-applet
2536   file-roller
2537   gcalctool
2538   gconf-editor
2539   gdm
2540   gedit
2541   gedit-common
2542   gnome-games
2543   gnome-games-data
2544   gnome-nettool
2545   gnome-system-tools
2546   gnome-themes
2547   gnuchess
2548   gucharmap
2549   guile-1.8-libs
2550   libavahi-ui0
2551   libdmx1
2552   libgalago3
2553   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
2554   libgtksourceview2.0-0
2555   liblircclient0
2556   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
2557   libspeexdsp1
2558   libsvga1
2559   rhythmbox
2560   seahorse
2561   sound-juicer
2562   system-config-printer
2563   totem-common
2564   transmission-gtk
2565   vinagre
2566   vino
2567 </p></blockquote>
2568
2569 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
2570
2571 <blockquote><p>
2572   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
2573 </p></blockquote>
2574
2575 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
2576
2577 <blockquote><p>
2578 [nothing]
2579 </p></blockquote>
2580
2581 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
2582
2583 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
2584
2585 <blockquote><p>
2586   ksmserver
2587 </p></blockquote>
2588
2589 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
2590
2591 <blockquote><p>
2592   kwin
2593   network-manager-kde
2594 </p></blockquote>
2595
2596 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
2597
2598 <blockquote><p>
2599   arts
2600   dolphin
2601   freespacenotifier
2602   google-gadgets-gst
2603   google-gadgets-xul
2604   kappfinder
2605   kcalc
2606   kcharselect
2607   kde-core
2608   kde-plasma-desktop
2609   kde-standard
2610   kde-window-manager
2611   kdeartwork
2612   kdeartwork-emoticons
2613   kdeartwork-style
2614   kdeartwork-theme-icon
2615   kdebase
2616   kdebase-apps
2617   kdebase-workspace
2618   kdebase-workspace-bin
2619   kdebase-workspace-data
2620   kdeeject
2621   kdelibs
2622   kdeplasma-addons
2623   kdeutils
2624   kdewallpapers
2625   kdf
2626   kfloppy
2627   kgpg
2628   khelpcenter4
2629   kinfocenter
2630   konq-plugins-l10n
2631   konqueror-nsplugins
2632   kscreensaver
2633   kscreensaver-xsavers
2634   ktimer
2635   kwrite
2636   libgle3
2637   libkde4-ruby1.8
2638   libkonq5
2639   libkonq5-templates
2640   libnetpbm10
2641   libplasma-ruby
2642   libplasma-ruby1.8
2643   libqt4-ruby1.8
2644   marble-data
2645   marble-plugins
2646   netpbm
2647   nuvola-icon-theme
2648   plasma-dataengines-workspace
2649   plasma-desktop
2650   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
2651   plasma-runners-addons
2652   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
2653   plasma-scriptengine-python
2654   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
2655   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
2656   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
2657   plasma-scriptengines
2658   plasma-wallpapers-addons
2659   plasma-widget-folderview
2660   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
2661   ruby
2662   sweeper
2663   update-notifier-kde
2664   xscreensaver-data-extra
2665   xscreensaver-gl
2666   xscreensaver-gl-extra
2667   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
2668 </p></blockquote>
2669
2670 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
2671
2672 <blockquote><p>
2673   ark
2674   google-gadgets-common
2675   google-gadgets-qt
2676   htdig
2677   kate
2678   kdebase-bin
2679   kdebase-data
2680   kdepasswd
2681   kfind
2682   klipper
2683   konq-plugins
2684   konqueror
2685   ksysguard
2686   ksysguardd
2687   libarchive1
2688   libcln6
2689   libeet1
2690   libeina-svn-06
2691   libggadget-1.0-0b
2692   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
2693   libgps19
2694   libkdecorations4
2695   libkephal4
2696   libkonq4
2697   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
2698   libkscreensaver5
2699   libksgrd4
2700   libksignalplotter4
2701   libkunitconversion4
2702   libkwineffects1a
2703   libmarblewidget4
2704   libntrack-qt4-1
2705   libntrack0
2706   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
2707   libplasmaclock4a
2708   libplasmagenericshell4
2709   libprocesscore4a
2710   libprocessui4a
2711   libqalculate5
2712   libqedje0a
2713   libqtruby4shared2
2714   libqzion0a
2715   libruby1.8
2716   libscim8c2a
2717   libsmokekdecore4-3
2718   libsmokekdeui4-3
2719   libsmokekfile3
2720   libsmokekhtml3
2721   libsmokekio3
2722   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
2723   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
2724   libsmokekparts3
2725   libsmokektexteditor3
2726   libsmokekutils3
2727   libsmokenepomuk3
2728   libsmokephonon3
2729   libsmokeplasma3
2730   libsmokeqtcore4-3
2731   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
2732   libsmokeqtgui4-3
2733   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
2734   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
2735   libsmokeqtscript4-3
2736   libsmokeqtsql4-3
2737   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
2738   libsmokeqttest4-3
2739   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
2740   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
2741   libsmokeqtxml4-3
2742   libsmokesolid3
2743   libsmokesoprano3
2744   libtaskmanager4a
2745   libtidy-0.99-0
2746   libweather-ion4a
2747   libxklavier16
2748   libxxf86misc1
2749   okteta
2750   oxygencursors
2751   plasma-dataengines-addons
2752   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
2753   plasma-widget-lancelot
2754   plasma-widgets-addons
2755   plasma-widgets-workspace
2756   polkit-kde-1
2757   ruby1.8
2758   systemsettings
2759   update-notifier-common
2760 </p></blockquote>
2761
2762 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
2763 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
2764 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
2765 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
2766
2767       </div>
2768       <div class="tags">
2769
2770
2771         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>.
2772
2773
2774       </div>
2775     </div>
2776     <div class="padding"></div>
2777
2778     <div class="entry">
2779       <div class="title">
2780         <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>
2781       </div>
2782       <div class="date">
2783         22nd November 2010
2784       </div>
2785       <div class="body">
2786         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
2787 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
2788 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
2789 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
2790 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
2791 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
2792 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
2793 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
2794 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
2795
2796 <p>I found
2797 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
2798 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
2799 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
2800 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
2801 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
2802 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
2803
2804 <pre>
2805 #!/bin/sh
2806
2807 # Based on
2808 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
2809
2810 set -e
2811 set -x
2812
2813 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
2814     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
2815     exit 1
2816 else
2817     host="$1"
2818 fi
2819
2820 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
2821     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
2822     exit 1
2823 fi
2824
2825 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
2826 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
2827 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
2828 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
2829
2830 img=$host.img
2831 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
2832 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
2833
2834 parted $img mklabel msdos
2835 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
2836 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
2837 parted $img set 1 boot on
2838
2839 modprobe dm-mod
2840 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
2841 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
2842
2843 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
2844 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
2845 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
2846
2847 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
2848 losetup -d /dev/loop0
2849 </pre>
2850
2851 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
2852 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
2853
2854 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
2855 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
2856 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
2857 seem to work just fine.</p>
2858
2859       </div>
2860       <div class="tags">
2861
2862
2863         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>.
2864
2865
2866       </div>
2867     </div>
2868     <div class="padding"></div>
2869
2870     <div class="entry">
2871       <div class="title">
2872         <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>
2873       </div>
2874       <div class="date">
2875         20th November 2010
2876       </div>
2877       <div class="body">
2878         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
2879 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
2880 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
2881 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
2882
2883 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
2884 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
2885 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
2886
2887 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
2888
2889 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
2890
2891 <blockquote><p>
2892   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
2893   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
2894   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
2895   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
2896   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
2897   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
2898   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
2899   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
2900   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
2901   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
2902   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
2903   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
2904   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
2905   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
2906   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
2907   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
2908   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
2909   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
2910   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
2911   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
2912   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
2913   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
2914   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
2915   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
2916   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
2917   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
2918   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
2919   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
2920   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
2921   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
2922   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
2923   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
2924   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
2925   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
2926   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
2927   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
2928   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
2929   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
2930   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
2931   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
2932   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
2933   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
2934   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
2935   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
2936   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
2937   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
2938   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
2939   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
2940   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
2941   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
2942   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
2943   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
2944   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
2945   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
2946   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
2947   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
2948   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
2949   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
2950   zip
2951 </p></blockquote>
2952
2953 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
2954
2955 <blockquote><p>
2956   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
2957   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
2958   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
2959   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
2960   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
2961   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
2962   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
2963   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
2964   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
2965   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
2966   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
2967   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
2968   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
2969   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
2970   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
2971   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
2972   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
2973   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
2974   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
2975   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
2976   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
2977   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
2978   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
2979   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
2980   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
2981   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
2982   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
2983   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
2984   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
2985 </p></blockquote>
2986
2987 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
2988
2989 <blockquote><p>
2990   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
2991 </p></blockquote>
2992
2993 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
2994
2995 <blockquote><p>
2996 [nothing]
2997 </p></blockquote>
2998
2999 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
3000
3001 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3002
3003 <blockquote><p>
3004   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
3005   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
3006   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
3007   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
3008   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
3009   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
3010   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
3011   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
3012   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
3013   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
3014   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
3015   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
3016   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
3017   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
3018   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
3019   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
3020   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
3021   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
3022   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
3023   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
3024   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
3025   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
3026   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
3027   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
3028   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
3029   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
3030   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
3031   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
3032   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
3033   ttf-sazanami-gothic
3034 </p></blockquote>
3035
3036 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3037
3038 <blockquote><p>
3039   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
3040   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
3041   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
3042   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
3043   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
3044   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
3045   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
3046   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
3047   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
3048   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
3049   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
3050   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
3051   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
3052   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
3053   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
3054   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
3055   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
3056   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
3057   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
3058   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
3059   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
3060   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
3061   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
3062   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
3063   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
3064   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
3065   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
3066   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
3067   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
3068   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
3069   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
3070   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
3071   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
3072 </p></blockquote>
3073
3074 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3075
3076 <blockquote><p>
3077   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
3078   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
3079   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
3080   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
3081   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
3082   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
3083   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
3084 </p></blockquote>
3085
3086 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3087
3088 <blockquote><p>
3089   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
3090 </p></blockquote>
3091
3092       </div>
3093       <div class="tags">
3094
3095
3096         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>.
3097
3098
3099       </div>
3100     </div>
3101     <div class="padding"></div>
3102
3103     <div class="entry">
3104       <div class="title">
3105         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
3106       </div>
3107       <div class="date">
3108         20th November 2010
3109       </div>
3110       <div class="body">
3111         <p>Answering
3112 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
3113 call from the Gnash project</a> for
3114 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
3115 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
3116 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
3117 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
3118 releases out more often.</p>
3119
3120 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
3121 I have considered setting up a <a
3122 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
3123 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
3124 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
3125 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
3126 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
3127 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
3128 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
3129 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
3130 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
3131 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
3132 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
3133 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
3134
3135       </div>
3136       <div class="tags">
3137
3138
3139         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>.
3140
3141
3142       </div>
3143     </div>
3144     <div class="padding"></div>
3145
3146     <div class="entry">
3147       <div class="title">
3148         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
3149       </div>
3150       <div class="date">
3151          9th November 2010
3152       </div>
3153       <div class="body">
3154         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
3155
3156 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
3157 3D linked in from
3158 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
3159 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
3160
3161       </div>
3162       <div class="tags">
3163
3164
3165         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>.
3166
3167
3168       </div>
3169     </div>
3170     <div class="padding"></div>
3171
3172     <div class="entry">
3173       <div class="title">
3174         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
3175       </div>
3176       <div class="date">
3177         24th October 2010
3178       </div>
3179       <div class="body">
3180         <p>Some updates.</p>
3181
3182 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
3183 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
3184 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
3185 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
3186 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
3187 :)</p>
3188
3189 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
3190 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
3191 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
3192 It is called
3193 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
3194 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
3195 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
3196 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
3197 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
3198 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
3199
3200 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
3201 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
3202 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
3203 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
3204 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
3205 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
3206 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
3207 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
3208 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
3209 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
3210
3211       </div>
3212       <div class="tags">
3213
3214
3215         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>.
3216
3217
3218       </div>
3219     </div>
3220     <div class="padding"></div>
3221
3222     <div class="entry">
3223       <div class="title">
3224         <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>
3225       </div>
3226       <div class="date">
3227          4th September 2010
3228       </div>
3229       <div class="body">
3230         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
3231 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
3232 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
3233 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
3234 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
3235 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
3236 installed.</p>
3237
3238 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
3239 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
3240 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
3241 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
3242 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
3243 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
3244 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
3245 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
3246 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
3247
3248 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
3249 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
3250 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
3251 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
3252 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
3253 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
3254 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
3255 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
3256 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
3257 pages they want to visit.</p>
3258
3259 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
3260 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
3261 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
3262 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
3263 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
3264 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
3265 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
3266 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
3267 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
3268 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
3269 accept the new package into Squeeze.</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/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>.
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/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
3285       </div>
3286       <div class="date">
3287         27th July 2010
3288       </div>
3289       <div class="body">
3290         <p>I discovered this while doing
3291 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
3292 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
3293 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
3294 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
3295 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
3296
3297 <p>An example is from todays
3298 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
3299 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
3300 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
3301 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
3302 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
3303 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
3304 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
3305
3306 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
3307
3308 <blockquote><pre>
3309 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
3310  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
3311   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
3312 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
3313  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
3314 </pre></blockquote>
3315
3316 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
3317 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
3318 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
3319 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
3320 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
3321 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
3322 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
3323 of dependency loops.</p>
3324
3325 <p>Thanks to
3326 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
3327 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
3328 dependencies
3329 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
3330 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
3331
3332 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
3333 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
3334 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
3335 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
3336 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
3337 it.</p>
3338
3339       </div>
3340       <div class="tags">
3341
3342
3343         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>.
3344
3345
3346       </div>
3347     </div>
3348     <div class="padding"></div>
3349
3350     <div class="entry">
3351       <div class="title">
3352         <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>
3353       </div>
3354       <div class="date">
3355         17th July 2010
3356       </div>
3357       <div class="body">
3358         <p>This is a
3359 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
3360 on my
3361 <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
3362 work</a> on
3363 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
3364 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
3365
3366 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
3367 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
3368 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
3369 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
3370
3371 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
3372 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
3373 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
3374
3375 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
3376
3377 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
3378 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
3379 the web.
3380
3381 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
3382 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
3383 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
3384 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
3385 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
3386 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
3387
3388 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
3389 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
3390 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
3391 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
3392 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
3393 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
3394 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
3395 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
3396 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
3397 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
3398 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
3399 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
3400 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
3401 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
3402 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
3403 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
3404
3405 <blockquote><pre>
3406 ldapsearch -h ldap \
3407   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
3408   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
3409   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
3410   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
3411   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
3412   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
3413
3414 ldapsearch -h ldap \
3415   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
3416   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
3417   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
3418   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
3419   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
3420 </pre></blockquote>
3421
3422 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
3423 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
3424 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
3425 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3426 also exist.</p>
3427
3428 <blockquote><pre>
3429 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3430 objectclass: top
3431 objectclass: dnsdomain
3432 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3433 dc: tjener
3434 arecord: 10.0.2.2
3435 associateddomain: tjener.intern
3436
3437 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3438 objectclass: top
3439 objectclass: dnsdomain2
3440 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3441 dc: 2
3442 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
3443 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
3444 </pre></blockquote>
3445
3446 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
3447 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
3448 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
3449 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
3450 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
3451 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
3452 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
3453 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
3454 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
3455 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
3456 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
3457 instead.</p>
3458
3459 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
3460 like this:</p>
3461
3462 <blockquote><pre>
3463 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
3464   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
3465   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
3466   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
3467   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
3468   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
3469
3470 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
3471   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
3472 </pre></blockquote>
3473
3474 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
3475 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
3476 reverse lookups.</p>
3477
3478 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
3479 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
3480 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
3481 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
3482
3483 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
3484 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
3485 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
3486
3487 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
3488 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
3489 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
3490 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
3491 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
3492
3493 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
3494 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
3495 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
3496 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
3497 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
3498
3499 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
3500 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
3501 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
3502 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
3503 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
3504 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
3505
3506 <blockquote><pre>
3507 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
3508     SUP top
3509     AUXILIARY
3510     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
3511           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
3512           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
3513           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
3514           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
3515     ))
3516 </pre></blockquote>
3517
3518 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
3519 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
3520 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
3521 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
3522 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
3523 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
3524
3525 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
3526
3527 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
3528 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
3529 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
3530 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
3531 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
3532
3533 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
3534 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
3535 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
3536 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
3537
3538 <blockquote><pre>
3539 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
3540 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
3541 </pre></blockquote>
3542
3543 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
3544 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
3545 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
3546 search result is this entry:</p>
3547
3548 <blockquote><pre>
3549 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3550 cn: dhcp
3551 objectClass: top
3552 objectClass: dhcpServer
3553 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3554 </pre></blockquote>
3555
3556 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
3557 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
3558 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
3559 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
3560 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
3561 The search result is this entry:</p>
3562
3563 <blockquote><pre>
3564 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3565 cn: DHCP Config
3566 objectClass: top
3567 objectClass: dhcpService
3568 objectClass: dhcpOptions
3569 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3570 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
3571 dhcpStatements: authoritative
3572 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
3573 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
3574 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
3575 </pre></blockquote>
3576
3577 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
3578 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
3579 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
3580 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
3581 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
3582 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
3583 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
3584 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
3585 related computer objects.</p>
3586
3587 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
3588 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
3589 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
3590 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
3591 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
3592 like:</p>
3593
3594 <blockquote><pre>
3595 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3596 cn: hostname
3597 objectClass: top
3598 objectClass: dhcpHost
3599 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
3600 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
3601 </pre></blockquote>
3602
3603 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
3604 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
3605 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
3606 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
3607 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
3608 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
3609 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
3610 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
3611 structural object class.
3612
3613 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
3614
3615 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
3616 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
3617 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
3618 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
3619 in the configuration.</p>
3620
3621 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
3622 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
3623 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
3624 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
3625 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
3626 structure.</p>
3627
3628 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
3629 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
3630
3631 <blockquote><pre>
3632 ou=services
3633   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
3634     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
3635     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
3636       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
3637         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
3638     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
3639       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
3640         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
3641     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
3642       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
3643 </pre></blockquote>
3644
3645 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
3646 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
3647 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
3648 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
3649
3650 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
3651 like this:</p>
3652
3653 <blockquote><pre>
3654 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3655 dc: hostname
3656 objectClass: top
3657 objectClass: dhcpHost
3658 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3659 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
3660 associateddomain: hostname.intern
3661 arecord: 10.11.12.13
3662 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
3663 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
3664 </pre></blockquote>
3665
3666 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
3667 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
3668 auxiliary object class.</p>
3669
3670       </div>
3671       <div class="tags">
3672
3673
3674         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>.
3675
3676
3677       </div>
3678     </div>
3679     <div class="padding"></div>
3680
3681     <div class="entry">
3682       <div class="title">
3683         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
3684       </div>
3685       <div class="date">
3686         14th July 2010
3687       </div>
3688       <div class="body">
3689         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
3690 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
3691 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
3692 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
3693 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
3694
3695 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
3696 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
3697
3698 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
3699 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
3700 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
3701 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
3702 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
3703 to a slave DNS server.</p>
3704
3705 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
3706 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
3707 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
3708 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
3709 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
3710 seem to work.</p>
3711
3712 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
3713 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
3714 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
3715 this:</p>
3716
3717 <blockquote><pre>
3718   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3719   cn: hostname
3720   objectClass: dhcphost
3721   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3722   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
3723   associateddomain: hostname.intern
3724   arecord: 10.11.12.13
3725   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
3726   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
3727   ldapconfigsound: Y
3728 </pre></blockquote>
3729
3730 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
3731 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
3732 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
3733 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
3734
3735 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
3736 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
3737 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
3738 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
3739 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
3740 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
3741 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
3742 might be a good place to put it.</p>
3743
3744 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
3745 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
3746
3747       </div>
3748       <div class="tags">
3749
3750
3751         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>.
3752
3753
3754       </div>
3755     </div>
3756     <div class="padding"></div>
3757
3758     <div class="entry">
3759       <div class="title">
3760         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
3761       </div>
3762       <div class="date">
3763         11th July 2010
3764       </div>
3765       <div class="body">
3766         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
3767 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
3768 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
3769 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
3770
3771 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
3772 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
3773 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
3774 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
3775 LTSP clients.</p>
3776
3777 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
3778 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
3779 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
3780
3781 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
3782 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
3783 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
3784
3785 <blockquote><pre>
3786 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
3787 #
3788 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
3789 #
3790 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
3791 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
3792 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
3793 #
3794 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
3795 # existence of attribute names.
3796 #
3797 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
3798 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
3799 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
3800 #
3801 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
3802 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
3803 #
3804 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
3805 #     SUP top
3806 #     AUXILIARY
3807 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
3808
3809 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
3810 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
3811     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
3812     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
3813         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
3814         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
3815             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
3816             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
3817             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
3818             # bass value on to clients
3819             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
3820         done
3821     done
3822 fi
3823 </pre></blockquote>
3824
3825 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
3826 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
3827 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
3828 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
3829 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
3830
3831 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
3832 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
3833
3834 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
3835 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
3836 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
3837 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
3838 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
3839 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
3840
3841       </div>
3842       <div class="tags">
3843
3844
3845         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>.
3846
3847
3848       </div>
3849     </div>
3850     <div class="padding"></div>
3851
3852     <div class="entry">
3853       <div class="title">
3854         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
3855       </div>
3856       <div class="date">
3857          9th July 2010
3858       </div>
3859       <div class="body">
3860         <p>Since
3861 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
3862 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
3863 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
3864 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
3865 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
3866 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
3867 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
3868 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
3869 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
3870 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
3871 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
3872 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
3873 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
3874
3875       </div>
3876       <div class="tags">
3877
3878
3879         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>.
3880
3881
3882       </div>
3883     </div>
3884     <div class="padding"></div>
3885
3886     <div class="entry">
3887       <div class="title">
3888         <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>
3889       </div>
3890       <div class="date">
3891          3rd July 2010
3892       </div>
3893       <div class="body">
3894         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
3895 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
3896 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
3897 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
3898 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
3899 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
3900 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
3901 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
3902
3903 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
3904 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
3905 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
3906 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
3907 publish the difference.</p>
3908
3909 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3910
3911 <blockquote><p>
3912   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
3913   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
3914   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
3915   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
3916   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
3917   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
3918   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
3919   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
3920 </p></blockquote>
3921
3922 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3923
3924 <blockquote><p>
3925   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
3926   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
3927   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
3928   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
3929   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
3930   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
3931   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
3932   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
3933   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
3934   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
3935   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
3936   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
3937   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
3938   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
3939   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
3940   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
3941   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
3942   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
3943   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
3944   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
3945 </p></blockquote>
3946
3947 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3948
3949 <blockquote><p>
3950   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
3951   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
3952   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
3953   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
3954   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
3955   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
3956   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
3957   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
3958   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
3959   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
3960   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
3961   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
3962   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
3963   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
3964   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
3965   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
3966   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
3967   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
3968   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
3969   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
3970   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
3971 </p></blockquote>
3972
3973 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3974
3975 <blockquote><p>
3976   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
3977   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
3978   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
3979 </p></blockquote>
3980
3981 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
3982 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
3983 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
3984 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
3985 the difference somewhat.
3986
3987       </div>
3988       <div class="tags">
3989
3990
3991         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>.
3992
3993
3994       </div>
3995     </div>
3996     <div class="padding"></div>
3997
3998     <div class="entry">
3999       <div class="title">
4000         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
4001       </div>
4002       <div class="date">
4003         28th June 2010
4004       </div>
4005       <div class="body">
4006         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
4007 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
4008 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
4009 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
4010 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
4011 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
4012 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
4013 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
4014 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
4015 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
4016
4017 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
4018 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
4019 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
4020 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
4021 released.</p>
4022
4023 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
4024 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
4025 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
4026 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
4027
4028 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
4029 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
4030
4031 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
4032 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
4033 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
4034 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
4035 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
4036
4037       </div>
4038       <div class="tags">
4039
4040
4041         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>.
4042
4043
4044       </div>
4045     </div>
4046     <div class="padding"></div>
4047
4048     <div class="entry">
4049       <div class="title">
4050         <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>
4051       </div>
4052       <div class="date">
4053         24th June 2010
4054       </div>
4055       <div class="body">
4056         <p>A while back, I
4057 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
4058 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
4059 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
4060 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
4061
4062 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
4063 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
4064 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
4065 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
4066
4067 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
4068 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
4069 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
4070 Debian Edu.</p>
4071
4072 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
4073 the
4074 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
4075 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
4076 available today from IETF.</p>
4077
4078 <pre>
4079 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
4080 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
4081 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
4082  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
4083         NAME 'dhcpHost'
4084         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
4085 -       SUP top
4086 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
4087         MUST cn
4088         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
4089         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
4090 </pre>
4091
4092 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
4093 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
4094 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
4095
4096 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
4097 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
4098
4099       </div>
4100       <div class="tags">
4101
4102
4103         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>.
4104
4105
4106       </div>
4107     </div>
4108     <div class="padding"></div>
4109
4110     <div class="entry">
4111       <div class="title">
4112         <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>
4113       </div>
4114       <div class="date">
4115         16th June 2010
4116       </div>
4117       <div class="body">
4118         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
4119 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
4120 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
4121 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
4122 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
4123 this:
4124
4125 <blockquote><pre>
4126 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
4127 tasksel --new-install
4128 </pre></blockquote>
4129
4130 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
4131 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
4132 any output what so ever.
4133
4134 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
4135 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
4136 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
4137 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
4138 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
4139 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
4140 code like this:
4141
4142 <blockquote><pre>
4143 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
4144 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
4145 $cmd
4146 </pre></blockquote>
4147
4148 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
4149 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
4150 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
4151 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
4152 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
4153 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
4154 installation.</p>
4155
4156 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
4157 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
4158 like this.</p>
4159
4160       </div>
4161       <div class="tags">
4162
4163
4164         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>.
4165
4166
4167       </div>
4168     </div>
4169     <div class="padding"></div>
4170
4171     <div class="entry">
4172       <div class="title">
4173         <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>
4174       </div>
4175       <div class="date">
4176         13th June 2010
4177       </div>
4178       <div class="body">
4179         <p>My
4180 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
4181 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
4182 finally made the upgrade logs available from
4183 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
4184 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
4185 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
4186 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
4187
4188 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
4189 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
4190 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
4191 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
4192 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
4193 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
4194 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
4195 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
4196
4197 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
4198 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
4199 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
4200 too surprising.</p>
4201
4202 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
4203 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
4204 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
4205 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
4206 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
4207 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
4208 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
4209 continue.</p>
4210
4211 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
4212 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
4213   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
4214   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
4215   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
4216   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
4217   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
4218   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
4219   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
4220   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
4221   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
4222   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
4223   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
4224   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
4225   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
4226   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4227   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
4228   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
4229   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
4230   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
4231   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
4232   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
4233   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
4234   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
4235   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
4236   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
4237   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
4238   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
4239   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
4240   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
4241
4242 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
4243
4244 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
4245   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
4246   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
4247   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
4248   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
4249   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
4250   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
4251   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
4252   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
4253   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
4254   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
4255   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
4256   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
4257   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
4258   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
4259   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
4260   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
4261   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
4262   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
4263   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
4264   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
4265   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
4266   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
4267   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
4268   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
4269   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
4270   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
4271   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
4272   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
4273   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4274   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
4275   zip</p>
4276
4277 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
4278
4279 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
4280   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
4281   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
4282   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
4283   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
4284   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
4285   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
4286   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
4287   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
4288   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
4289   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
4290   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
4291   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
4292   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
4293   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4294   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
4295   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
4296   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
4297   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
4298   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
4299   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
4300   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
4301   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
4302   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
4303   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
4304   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
4305   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
4306   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
4307
4308 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
4309 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
4310   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
4311   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
4312   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
4313   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
4314   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
4315   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
4316   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
4317   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
4318   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
4319   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
4320   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
4321   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
4322   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
4323   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
4324   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
4325   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
4326   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
4327   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
4328   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
4329   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
4330   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
4331   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
4332   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
4333   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
4334   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
4335   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
4336   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
4337   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
4338   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
4339   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
4340   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
4341   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
4342   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
4343   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4344   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
4345   xulrunner-1.9</p>
4346
4347
4348       </div>
4349       <div class="tags">
4350
4351
4352         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>.
4353
4354
4355       </div>
4356     </div>
4357     <div class="padding"></div>
4358
4359     <div class="entry">
4360       <div class="title">
4361         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
4362       </div>
4363       <div class="date">
4364         11th June 2010
4365       </div>
4366       <div class="body">
4367         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
4368 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
4369 have been discovered and reported in the process
4370 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
4371 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
4372 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
4373 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
4374 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
4375
4376 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
4377 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
4378 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
4379 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
4380 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
4381 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
4382
4383 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
4384 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
4385 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
4386 is created.  The bug report
4387 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
4388 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
4389 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
4390 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
4391 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
4392 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
4393 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
4394 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
4395 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
4396 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
4397 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
4398 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
4399 Debian Squeeze.</p>
4400
4401 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
4402 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
4403 trick:</p>
4404
4405 <blockquote><pre>
4406 #!/bin/sh
4407 set -ex
4408
4409 if [ "$1" ] ; then
4410     desktop=$1
4411 else
4412     desktop=gnome
4413 fi
4414
4415 from=lenny
4416 to=squeeze
4417
4418 exec &lt; /dev/null
4419 unset LANG
4420 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
4421 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
4422 fuser -mv .
4423 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
4424 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
4425 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
4426 #!/bin/sh
4427 exit 101
4428 EOF
4429 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
4430 exit_cleanup() {
4431     umount $tmpdir/proc
4432 }
4433 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
4434 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
4435 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
4436
4437 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
4438
4439 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
4440 # to return the correct answers.
4441 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
4442     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
4443
4444 # Include the desktop and laptop task
4445 for test in desktop laptop ; do
4446     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
4447 #!/bin/sh
4448 exit 2
4449 EOF
4450     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
4451 done
4452
4453 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
4454 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
4455 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
4456 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
4457
4458 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
4459 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
4460 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
4461 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
4462 fuser -mv
4463 </pre></blockquote>
4464
4465 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
4466 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
4467 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
4468 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
4469 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
4470 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
4471
4472 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
4473 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
4474 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
4475 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
4476 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
4477 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
4478 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
4479
4480 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
4481 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
4482 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
4483 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
4484 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
4485 packages.</p>
4486
4487       </div>
4488       <div class="tags">
4489
4490
4491         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>.
4492
4493
4494       </div>
4495     </div>
4496     <div class="padding"></div>
4497
4498     <div class="entry">
4499       <div class="title">
4500         <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>
4501       </div>
4502       <div class="date">
4503          6th June 2010
4504       </div>
4505       <div class="body">
4506         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
4507 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
4508 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
4509 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
4510 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
4511 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
4512 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
4513
4514 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
4515 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
4516 COLUMNS):</p>
4517
4518 <blockquote><pre>
4519 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
4520 previous=N
4521 PREVLEVEL=
4522 RUNLEVEL=
4523 runlevel=S
4524 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
4525 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
4526 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
4527 </pre></blockquote>
4528
4529 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
4530 script.</p>
4531
4532 <blockquote><pre>
4533 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
4534 previous=N
4535 PREVLEVEL=N
4536 RUNLEVEL=S
4537 runlevel=S
4538 </pre></blockquote>
4539
4540 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
4541 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
4542 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
4543
4544 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
4545 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
4546 choice.</p>
4547
4548       </div>
4549       <div class="tags">
4550
4551
4552         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>.
4553
4554
4555       </div>
4556     </div>
4557     <div class="padding"></div>
4558
4559     <div class="entry">
4560       <div class="title">
4561         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
4562       </div>
4563       <div class="date">
4564          6th June 2010
4565       </div>
4566       <div class="body">
4567         <p>Via the
4568 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
4569 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
4570 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
4571 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
4572 following the standards wars of today.</p>
4573
4574       </div>
4575       <div class="tags">
4576
4577
4578         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>.
4579
4580
4581       </div>
4582     </div>
4583     <div class="padding"></div>
4584
4585     <div class="entry">
4586       <div class="title">
4587         <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>
4588       </div>
4589       <div class="date">
4590          3rd June 2010
4591       </div>
4592       <div class="body">
4593         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
4594 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
4595 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
4596 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
4597 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
4598
4599 <blockquote><pre>
4600 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
4601   vendor                    count
4602   Dell Computer Corporation     1
4603     PowerEdge 1750              1
4604   IBM                           1
4605     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
4606   Intel                         2
4607   [no-dmi-info]                 3
4608 maintainer:~#
4609 </pre></blockquote>
4610
4611 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
4612 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
4613 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
4614 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
4615 option to list the individual machines.</p>
4616
4617 <p>A larger list is
4618 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
4619 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
4620 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
4621 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
4622 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
4623 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
4624 collector.</p>
4625
4626       </div>
4627       <div class="tags">
4628
4629
4630         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>.
4631
4632
4633       </div>
4634     </div>
4635     <div class="padding"></div>
4636
4637     <div class="entry">
4638       <div class="title">
4639         <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>
4640       </div>
4641       <div class="date">
4642          1st June 2010
4643       </div>
4644       <div class="body">
4645         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
4646 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
4647 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
4648 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
4649 wait.</p>
4650
4651 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
4652 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
4653 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
4654 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
4655 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
4656 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
4657
4658 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
4659 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
4660 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
4661 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
4662 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
4663 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
4664 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
4665 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
4666
4667 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
4668
4669       </div>
4670       <div class="tags">
4671
4672
4673         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>.
4674
4675
4676       </div>
4677     </div>
4678     <div class="padding"></div>
4679
4680     <div class="entry">
4681       <div class="title">
4682         <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>
4683       </div>
4684       <div class="date">
4685         27th May 2010
4686       </div>
4687       <div class="body">
4688         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
4689 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
4690 issues are known and should be solved:
4691
4692 <p><ul>
4693
4694 <li>The wicd package seen to
4695 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
4696 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
4697 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
4698 seem to be on the case.</li>
4699
4700 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
4701 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
4702 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
4703 maintainer is on the case.</li>
4704
4705 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
4706 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
4707 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
4708 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
4709 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
4710 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
4711 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
4712 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
4713
4714 </ul></p>
4715
4716 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
4717 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
4718 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
4719 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
4720
4721 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
4722 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
4723 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
4724 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
4725
4726 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
4727
4728       </div>
4729       <div class="tags">
4730
4731
4732         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>.
4733
4734
4735       </div>
4736     </div>
4737     <div class="padding"></div>
4738
4739     <div class="entry">
4740       <div class="title">
4741         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
4742       </div>
4743       <div class="date">
4744         22nd May 2010
4745       </div>
4746       <div class="body">
4747         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
4748 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
4749 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
4750 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
4751
4752 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
4753 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
4754 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
4755 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
4756 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
4757 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
4758 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
4759 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
4760 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
4761 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
4762 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
4763 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
4764 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
4765 going to work.</p>
4766
4767 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
4768 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
4769 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
4770 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
4771 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
4772 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
4773 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
4774 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
4775 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
4776 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
4777 Edu.</p>
4778
4779 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
4780 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
4781 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
4782 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
4783 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
4784 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
4785
4786 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
4787 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
4788
4789       </div>
4790       <div class="tags">
4791
4792
4793         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>.
4794
4795
4796       </div>
4797     </div>
4798     <div class="padding"></div>
4799
4800     <div class="entry">
4801       <div class="title">
4802         <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>
4803       </div>
4804       <div class="date">
4805         14th May 2010
4806       </div>
4807       <div class="body">
4808         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
4809 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
4810 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
4811 expected, if I am to believe the
4812 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
4813 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
4814 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
4815 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
4816 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
4817 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
4818 version.</p>
4819
4820 More information about
4821 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
4822 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
4823 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
4824 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
4825
4826 <blockquote><pre>
4827 CONCURRENCY=none
4828 </pre></blockquote>
4829
4830 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
4831 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
4832 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
4833 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
4834
4835       </div>
4836       <div class="tags">
4837
4838
4839         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>.
4840
4841
4842       </div>
4843     </div>
4844     <div class="padding"></div>
4845
4846     <div class="entry">
4847       <div class="title">
4848         <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>
4849       </div>
4850       <div class="date">
4851         14th May 2010
4852       </div>
4853       <div class="body">
4854         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
4855 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
4856 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
4857 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
4858 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
4859 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
4860 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
4861 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
4862
4863 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
4864 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
4865 this on the collector host:</p>
4866
4867 <blockquote><pre>
4868 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
4869 </pre></blockquote>
4870
4871 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
4872 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
4873
4874 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
4875 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
4876 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
4877 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
4878 written yet.</p>
4879
4880       </div>
4881       <div class="tags">
4882
4883
4884         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>.
4885
4886
4887       </div>
4888     </div>
4889     <div class="padding"></div>
4890
4891     <div class="entry">
4892       <div class="title">
4893         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
4894       </div>
4895       <div class="date">
4896         13th May 2010
4897       </div>
4898       <div class="body">
4899         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
4900 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
4901 has been
4902 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
4903
4904 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
4905 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
4906 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
4907 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
4908 based boot system.  Tollef is
4909 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
4910 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
4911 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
4912 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
4913 at the moment do not.</p>
4914
4915 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
4916 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
4917 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
4918 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
4919 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
4920 way forward.</p>
4921
4922 <p>In the mean time, based on the
4923 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
4924 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
4925 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
4926 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
4927 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
4928 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
4929 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
4930 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
4931
4932       </div>
4933       <div class="tags">
4934
4935
4936         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>.
4937
4938
4939       </div>
4940     </div>
4941     <div class="padding"></div>
4942
4943     <div class="entry">
4944       <div class="title">
4945         <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>
4946       </div>
4947       <div class="date">
4948          6th May 2010
4949       </div>
4950       <div class="body">
4951         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
4952 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
4953 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
4954 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
4955 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
4956 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
4957 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
4958
4959 <blockquote><pre>
4960 CONCURRENCY=makefile
4961 </pre></blockquote>
4962
4963 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
4964 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
4965 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
4966 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
4967 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
4968 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
4969 make this happen.</p>
4970
4971 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
4972 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
4973 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
4974 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
4975 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
4976
4977 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
4978 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
4979 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
4980 fix the remaining issues.</p>
4981
4982 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
4983 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
4984 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
4985 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
4986
4987       </div>
4988       <div class="tags">
4989
4990
4991         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>.
4992
4993
4994       </div>
4995     </div>
4996     <div class="padding"></div>
4997
4998     <div class="entry">
4999       <div class="title">
5000         <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>
5001       </div>
5002       <div class="date">
5003         27th July 2009
5004       </div>
5005       <div class="body">
5006         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
5007 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
5008 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
5009 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
5010 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
5011 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
5012 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
5013
5014 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
5015 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
5016 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
5017
5018       </div>
5019       <div class="tags">
5020
5021
5022         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>.
5023
5024
5025       </div>
5026     </div>
5027     <div class="padding"></div>
5028
5029     <div class="entry">
5030       <div class="title">
5031         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
5032       </div>
5033       <div class="date">
5034         22nd July 2009
5035       </div>
5036       <div class="body">
5037         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
5038 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
5039 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
5040 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
5041 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
5042 the package up to date.</p>
5043
5044 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
5045 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
5046 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
5047 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
5048 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
5049 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
5050 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
5051 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
5052 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
5053 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
5054 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
5055 working on the future release.</p>
5056
5057 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
5058 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
5059
5060       </div>
5061       <div class="tags">
5062
5063
5064         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>.
5065
5066
5067       </div>
5068     </div>
5069     <div class="padding"></div>
5070
5071     <div class="entry">
5072       <div class="title">
5073         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
5074       </div>
5075       <div class="date">
5076         24th June 2009
5077       </div>
5078       <div class="body">
5079         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
5080 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
5081 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
5082 funded
5083 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
5084 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
5085 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
5086 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
5087 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
5088 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
5089
5090 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
5091 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
5092 boot:</p>
5093
5094 <ul>
5095
5096 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
5097
5098 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
5099    clock is in UTC.</li>
5100
5101 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
5102    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
5103    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
5104
5105 </ul>
5106
5107 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
5108 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
5109 Villegas</a>.
5110
5111 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
5112 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
5113 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
5114 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
5115 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
5116 using this.</p>
5117
5118 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
5119 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
5120 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
5121 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
5122 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
5123 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
5124 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
5125
5126       </div>
5127       <div class="tags">
5128
5129
5130         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>.
5131
5132
5133       </div>
5134     </div>
5135     <div class="padding"></div>
5136
5137     <div class="entry">
5138       <div class="title">
5139         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
5140       </div>
5141       <div class="date">
5142         17th May 2009
5143       </div>
5144       <div class="body">
5145         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
5146 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
5147 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
5148 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
5149 dager siden kom
5150 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
5151 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
5152 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
5153 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
5154 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
5155
5156 <blockquote>
5157 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
5158 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
5159 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
5160 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
5161 </blockquote>
5162
5163 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
5164 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
5165 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
5166 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
5167 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
5168
5169 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
5170 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
5171 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
5172
5173       </div>
5174       <div class="tags">
5175
5176
5177         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>.
5178
5179
5180       </div>
5181     </div>
5182     <div class="padding"></div>
5183
5184     <div class="entry">
5185       <div class="title">
5186         <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>
5187       </div>
5188       <div class="date">
5189          7th May 2009
5190       </div>
5191       <div class="body">
5192         <p>Kom over
5193 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
5194 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
5195 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
5196 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
5197 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
5198 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
5199 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
5200
5201       </div>
5202       <div class="tags">
5203
5204
5205         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>.
5206
5207
5208       </div>
5209     </div>
5210     <div class="padding"></div>
5211
5212     <div class="entry">
5213       <div class="title">
5214         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
5215       </div>
5216       <div class="date">
5217          2nd May 2009
5218       </div>
5219       <div class="body">
5220         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
5221 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
5222 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
5223 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
5224 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
5225 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
5226 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
5227 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
5228 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
5229 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
5230 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
5231 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
5232 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
5233 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
5234 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
5235 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
5236 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
5237 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
5238 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
5239 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
5240
5241 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
5242 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
5243 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
5244 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
5245 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
5246 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
5247 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
5248 betydelige.</p>
5249
5250       </div>
5251       <div class="tags">
5252
5253
5254         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>.
5255
5256
5257       </div>
5258     </div>
5259     <div class="padding"></div>
5260
5261     <div class="entry">
5262       <div class="title">
5263         <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>
5264       </div>
5265       <div class="date">
5266          2nd May 2009
5267       </div>
5268       <div class="body">
5269         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
5270 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
5271 do not yet know them.</p>
5272
5273 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
5274 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
5275 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
5276 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
5277 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
5278 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
5279 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
5280 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
5281 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
5282 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
5283 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
5284
5285 <p>The second one is
5286 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
5287 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
5288 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
5289 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
5290 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
5291 and the company behind it is running
5292 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
5293 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
5294 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
5295 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
5296 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
5297 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
5298 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
5299 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
5300
5301 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
5302 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
5303 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
5304 surrounded by today.</p>
5305
5306       </div>
5307       <div class="tags">
5308
5309
5310         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>.
5311
5312
5313       </div>
5314     </div>
5315     <div class="padding"></div>
5316
5317     <div class="entry">
5318       <div class="title">
5319         <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>
5320       </div>
5321       <div class="date">
5322         28th April 2009
5323       </div>
5324       <div class="body">
5325         <p>Julien Blache
5326 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
5327 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
5328 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
5329 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
5330 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
5331 properties.</p>
5332
5333       </div>
5334       <div class="tags">
5335
5336
5337         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>.
5338
5339
5340       </div>
5341     </div>
5342     <div class="padding"></div>
5343
5344     <div class="entry">
5345       <div class="title">
5346         <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>
5347       </div>
5348       <div class="date">
5349         30th March 2009
5350       </div>
5351       <div class="body">
5352         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
5353 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
5354 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
5355 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
5356 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
5357 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
5358 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
5359 application.</p>
5360
5361 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
5362 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
5363 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
5364 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
5365 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
5366 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
5367 blocked from doing so.</p>
5368
5369 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
5370 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
5371 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
5372 requirements change.</p>
5373
5374 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
5375 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
5376 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
5377
5378       </div>
5379       <div class="tags">
5380
5381
5382         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>.
5383
5384
5385       </div>
5386     </div>
5387     <div class="padding"></div>
5388
5389     <div class="entry">
5390       <div class="title">
5391         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
5392       </div>
5393       <div class="date">
5394         29th March 2009
5395       </div>
5396       <div class="body">
5397         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
5398 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
5399 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
5400 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
5401 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
5402 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
5403 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
5404 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
5405 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
5406 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
5407 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
5408 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
5409 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
5410 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
5411 now. :)</p>
5412
5413       </div>
5414       <div class="tags">
5415
5416
5417         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>.
5418
5419
5420       </div>
5421     </div>
5422     <div class="padding"></div>
5423
5424     <div class="entry">
5425       <div class="title">
5426         <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>
5427       </div>
5428       <div class="date">
5429         29th March 2009
5430       </div>
5431       <div class="body">
5432         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
5433 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
5434 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
5435 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
5436 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
5437 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
5438
5439 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
5440 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
5441 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
5442 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
5443 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
5444 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
5445 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
5446 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
5447 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
5448 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
5449 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
5450 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
5451 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
5452
5453 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
5454 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
5455 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
5456 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
5457
5458 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
5459 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
5460
5461 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
5462 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
5463 new IETF work group?</p>
5464
5465       </div>
5466       <div class="tags">
5467
5468
5469         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>.
5470
5471
5472       </div>
5473     </div>
5474     <div class="padding"></div>
5475
5476     <div class="entry">
5477       <div class="title">
5478         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
5479       </div>
5480       <div class="date">
5481         15th February 2009
5482       </div>
5483       <div class="body">
5484         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
5485 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
5486 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
5487 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
5488 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
5489 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
5490 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
5491 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
5492 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
5493 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
5494 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
5495 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
5496
5497       </div>
5498       <div class="tags">
5499
5500
5501         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>.
5502
5503
5504       </div>
5505     </div>
5506     <div class="padding"></div>
5507
5508     <div class="entry">
5509       <div class="title">
5510         <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>
5511       </div>
5512       <div class="date">
5513          7th December 2008
5514       </div>
5515       <div class="body">
5516         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
5517 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
5518 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
5519 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
5520 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
5521 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
5522 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
5523 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
5524
5525 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
5526 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
5527 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
5528 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
5529 of these cards.</p>
5530
5531       </div>
5532       <div class="tags">
5533
5534
5535         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>.
5536
5537
5538       </div>
5539     </div>
5540     <div class="padding"></div>
5541
5542     <div class="entry">
5543       <div class="title">
5544         <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>
5545       </div>
5546       <div class="date">
5547         25th November 2008
5548       </div>
5549       <div class="body">
5550         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
5551 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
5552 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
5553 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
5554 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
5555 notes are available on
5556 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
5557 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
5558 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
5559 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
5560 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
5561 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
5562 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
5563 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
5564 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
5565
5566 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
5567 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
5568
5569       </div>
5570       <div class="tags">
5571
5572
5573         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>.
5574
5575
5576       </div>
5577     </div>
5578     <div class="padding"></div>
5579
5580     <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>
5581     <div id="sidebar">
5582
5583
5584
5585 <h2>Archive</h2>
5586 <ul>
5587
5588 <li>2013
5589 <ul>
5590
5591 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
5592
5593 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (1)</a></li>
5594
5595 </ul></li>
5596
5597 <li>2012
5598 <ul>
5599
5600 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
5601
5602 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
5603
5604 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
5605
5606 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
5607
5608 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
5609
5610 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
5611
5612 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
5613
5614 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
5615
5616 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
5617
5618 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
5619
5620 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
5621
5622 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
5623
5624 </ul></li>
5625
5626 <li>2011
5627 <ul>
5628
5629 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
5630
5631 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
5632
5633 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
5634
5635 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
5636
5637 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
5638
5639 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
5640
5641 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
5642
5643 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
5644
5645 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
5646
5647 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
5648
5649 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
5650
5651 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
5652
5653 </ul></li>
5654
5655 <li>2010
5656 <ul>
5657
5658 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
5659
5660 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
5661
5662 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
5663
5664 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
5665
5666 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
5667
5668 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
5669
5670 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
5671
5672 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
5673
5674 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
5675
5676 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
5677
5678 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
5679
5680 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
5681
5682 </ul></li>
5683
5684 <li>2009
5685 <ul>
5686
5687 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
5688
5689 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
5690
5691 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
5692
5693 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
5694
5695 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
5696
5697 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
5698
5699 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
5700
5701 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
5702
5703 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
5704
5705 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
5706
5707 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
5708
5709 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
5710
5711 </ul></li>
5712
5713 <li>2008
5714 <ul>
5715
5716 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
5717
5718 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
5719
5720 </ul></li>
5721
5722 </ul>
5723
5724
5725
5726 <h2>Tags</h2>
5727 <ul>
5728
5729  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
5730
5731  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
5732
5733  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
5734
5735  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
5736
5737  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (6)</a></li>
5738
5739  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
5740
5741  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
5742
5743  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (70)</a></li>
5744
5745  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (118)</a></li>
5746
5747  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (9)</a></li>
5748
5749  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (7)</a></li>
5750
5751  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
5752
5753  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (176)</a></li>
5754
5755  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
5756
5757  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
5758
5759  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (10)</a></li>
5760
5761  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (9)</a></li>
5762
5763  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (32)</a></li>
5764
5765  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (5)</a></li>
5766
5767  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (17)</a></li>
5768
5769  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
5770
5771  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
5772
5773  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
5774
5775  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
5776
5777  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (219)</a></li>
5778
5779  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (148)</a></li>
5780
5781  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (6)</a></li>
5782
5783  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
5784
5785  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (41)</a></li>
5786
5787  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (61)</a></li>
5788
5789  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
5790
5791  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
5792
5793  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
5794
5795  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (6)</a></li>
5796
5797  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
5798
5799  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
5800
5801  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
5802
5803  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (28)</a></li>
5804
5805  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
5806
5807  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
5808
5809  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (39)</a></li>
5810
5811  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
5812
5813  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (5)</a></li>
5814
5815  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (12)</a></li>
5816
5817  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
5818
5819  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (7)</a></li>
5820
5821  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (35)</a></li>
5822
5823  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
5824
5825  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (26)</a></li>
5826
5827 </ul>
5828
5829
5830     </div>
5831     <p style="text-align: right">
5832  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.4</a>
5833 </p>
5834
5835   </body>
5836 </html>