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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/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         24th September 2015
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
  32 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
  33 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
  34 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
  35 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
  36 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
  37 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
  38
  39 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
  40
  41 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
  42 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
  43 by someone else.  I found
  44 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
  45 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
  46 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
  47 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
  48 from him.  Via
  49 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
  50 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
  51 discovered
  52 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
  53 available in Debian.</p>
  54
  55 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
  56 battery stats ever since. Now my
  57 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
  58 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
  59 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
  60 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
  61
  62 <pre>
  63 #!/bin/sh
  64 # Inspired by
  65 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
  66 # See also
  67 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
  68 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
  69
  70 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
  71     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
  72
  73 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
  74     (
  75         printf "timestamp,"
  76         for f in $files; do
  77             printf "%s," $f
  78         done
  79         echo
  80     ) > "$logfile"
  81 fi
  82
  83 log_battery() {
  84     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
  85     # when several log processes run in parallel.
  86     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
  87         for f in $files; do \
  88             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
  89         done)
  90     echo "$msg"
  91 }
  92
  93 cd /sys/class/power_supply
  94
  95 for bat in BAT*; do
  96     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
  97 done
  98 </pre>
  99
 100 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
 101 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
 102 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
 103 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
 104 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
 105 The code for the Debian package
 106 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
 107 available on github</a>.</p>
 108
 109 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
 110
 111 <pre>
 112 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
 113 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
 114 [...]
 115 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
 116 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
 117 </pre>
 118
 119 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
 120 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
 121 battery.</p>
 122
 123 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
 124 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
 125 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
 126 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
 127 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
 128 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
 129 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
 130 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
 131 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
 132 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
 133 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
 134 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
 135 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
 136 Linux too.</p>
 137
 138 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
 139 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
 140 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
 141 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
 142 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
 143 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
 144 load).</p>
 145
 146 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
 147 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
 148 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
 149 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
 150 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
 151 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
 152 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
 153 those.</p>
 154
 155 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
 156 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
 157 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
 158 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
 159 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
 160 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
 161 specific.</p>
 162
 163       </div>
 164       <div class="tags">
 165
 166
 167         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 168
 169
 170       </div>
 171     </div>
 172     <div class="padding"></div>
 173
 174     <div class="entry">
 175       <div class="title">
 176         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</a>
 177       </div>
 178       <div class="date">
 179          5th July 2015
 180       </div>
 181       <div class="body">
 182         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
 183 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
 184 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
 185 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
 186 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
 187 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
 188 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
 189 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
 190 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
 191 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
 192 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
 193
 194 <p>One tip I got was to use the
 195 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
 196 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
 197 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
 198 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
 199 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
 200 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
 201
 202 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
 203 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
 204 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
 205 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
 206 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
 207 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
 208 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
 209 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
 210 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
 211 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
 212 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
 213 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
 214 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
 215 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
 216 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
 217
 218 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
 219 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
 220 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
 221 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
 222
 223 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
 224 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
 225
 226 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
 227 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
 228 different
 229 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
 230 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
 231
 232       </div>
 233       <div class="tags">
 234
 235
 236         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>.
 237
 238
 239       </div>
 240     </div>
 241     <div class="padding"></div>
 242
 243     <div class="entry">
 244       <div class="title">
 245         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html">Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</a>
 246       </div>
 247       <div class="date">
 248          3rd July 2015
 249       </div>
 250       <div class="body">
 251         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
 252 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
 253 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
 254 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
 255 flickering.</p>
 256
 257 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
 258 still as
 259 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
 260 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
 261 good help from
 262 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
 263 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
 264 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
 265 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
 266 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
 267 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
 268 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
 269 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
 270 deteriorated since X41.</p>
 271
 272 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
 273 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
 274 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
 275 have suggestions.</p>
 276
 277 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
 278 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
 279 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
 280
 281       </div>
 282       <div class="tags">
 283
 284
 285         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>.
 286
 287
 288       </div>
 289     </div>
 290     <div class="padding"></div>
 291
 292     <div class="entry">
 293       <div class="title">
 294         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
 295       </div>
 296       <div class="date">
 297         22nd November 2014
 298       </div>
 299       <div class="body">
 300         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
 301 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
 302 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
 303 courtesy of
 304 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
 305 Schubert</a> and
 306 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
 307 McVittie</a>.
 308
 309 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
 310 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
 311 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
 312 you upgrade:</p>
 313
 314 <p><blockquote><pre>
 315 Package: systemd-sysv
 316 Pin: release o=Debian
 317 Pin-Priority: -1
 318 </pre></blockquote><p>
 319
 320 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
 321 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
 322 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
 323 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
 324 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
 325
 326 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
 327 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
 328 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
 329 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
 330 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
 331 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
 332
 333 <p><blockquote><pre>
 334 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
 335 </pre></blockquote><p>
 336
 337 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
 338
 339 <p><blockquote><pre>
 340 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
 341 </pre></blockquote><p>
 342
 343 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
 344 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
 345
 346 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
 347 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
 348 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
 349 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
 350 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
 351 Jessie is released.</p>
 352
 353 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
 354 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
 355 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
 356 line.</p>
 357
 358       </div>
 359       <div class="tags">
 360
 361
 362         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>.
 363
 364
 365       </div>
 366     </div>
 367     <div class="padding"></div>
 368
 369     <div class="entry">
 370       <div class="title">
 371         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
 372       </div>
 373       <div class="date">
 374         10th November 2014
 375       </div>
 376       <div class="body">
 377         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
 378 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
 379 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
 380
 381 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
 382 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
 383 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
 384 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
 385 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
 386 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
 387 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
 388 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
 389 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
 390 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
 391 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
 392 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
 393 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
 394 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
 395 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
 396
 397 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
 398 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
 399 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
 400 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
 401 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
 402 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
 403 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
 404 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
 405 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
 406 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
 407 were fairly easy, and
 408 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
 409 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
 410 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
 411 useful approach.</p>
 412
 413 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
 414 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
 415 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
 416 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
 417 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
 418 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
 419 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
 420 this:</p>
 421
 422 <p><blockquote><pre>
 423 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
 424   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
 425 </pre></blockquote></p>
 426
 427 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
 428 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
 429
 430 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
 431 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
 432 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
 433 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
 434 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
 435 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
 436 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
 437 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
 438 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
 439 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
 440 system.</p>
 441
 442 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
 443 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
 444 SMTorP. :)</p>
 445
 446       </div>
 447       <div class="tags">
 448
 449
 450         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 451
 452
 453       </div>
 454     </div>
 455     <div class="padding"></div>
 456
 457     <div class="entry">
 458       <div class="title">
 459         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
 460       </div>
 461       <div class="date">
 462         22nd October 2014
 463       </div>
 464       <div class="body">
 465         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
 466 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
 467 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
 468 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
 469 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
 470 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
 471 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
 472 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
 473 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
 474 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
 475 lists I recently took over:</p>
 476
 477 <p><blockquote><pre>
 478 % time listadmin xiph
 479 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 480 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 481
 482 real    0m1.709s
 483 user    0m0.232s
 484 sys     0m0.012s
 485 %
 486 </pre></blockquote></p>
 487
 488 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
 489 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
 490 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
 491 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
 492 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
 493 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
 494 program.</p>
 495
 496 <p>If you install
 497 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
 498 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
 499 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
 500
 501 <p><blockquote><pre>
 502 username username@example.org
 503 spamlevel 23
 504 default discard
 505 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
 506
 507 password secret
 508 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
 509 mailman-list@lists.example.com
 510
 511 password hidden
 512 other-list@otherserver.example.org
 513 </pre></blockquote></p>
 514
 515 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
 516 learn the details.</p>
 517
 518 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
 519 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
 520 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
 521 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
 522
 523 <p><blockquote><pre>
 524 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
 525 </pre></blockquote></p>
 526
 527 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
 528 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
 529 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
 530 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
 531 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
 532 email.</p>
 533
 534 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
 535 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
 536 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
 537 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
 538 software.</p>
 539
 540 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 541 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 542 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 543
 544 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
 545 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
 546 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
 547 sure why.</p>
 548
 549       </div>
 550       <div class="tags">
 551
 552
 553         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>.
 554
 555
 556       </div>
 557     </div>
 558     <div class="padding"></div>
 559
 560     <div class="entry">
 561       <div class="title">
 562         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
 563       </div>
 564       <div class="date">
 565         17th October 2014
 566       </div>
 567       <div class="body">
 568         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
 569 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
 570 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
 571 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
 572 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
 573 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
 574 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
 575
 576 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
 577 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
 578 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
 579 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
 580 of this story.)</p>
 581
 582 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
 583 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
 584 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
 585 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
 586 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
 587 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
 588 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
 589 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
 590 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
 591 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
 592
 593 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
 594 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
 595 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
 596 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
 597
 598 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
 599 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
 600
 601 <p><blockquote><pre>
 602 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
 603 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
 604 </pre></blockquote></p>
 605
 606 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
 607 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
 608 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
 609 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
 610 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
 611 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
 612 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
 613 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
 614
 615 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
 616 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
 617
 618 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
 619 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
 620 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
 621 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
 622 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
 623
 624 <p><blockquote><pre>
 625 Task: isenkram-packages
 626 Section: hardware
 627 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 628  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 629  proposed.
 630 Test-new-install: show show
 631 Relevance: 8
 632 Packages: for-current-hardware
 633
 634 Task: isenkram-firmware
 635 Section: hardware
 636 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 637  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
 638  packages are proposed.
 639 Test-new-install: mark show
 640 Relevance: 8
 641 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
 642 </pre></blockquote></p>
 643
 644 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
 645 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
 646 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
 647 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
 648 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
 649
 650 <p><blockquote><pre>
 651 #!/bin/sh
 652 #
 653 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
 654 export PATH
 655 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 656 </pre></blockquote></p>
 657
 658 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
 659 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
 660
 661 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
 662 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
 663 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
 664 install.</p>
 665
 666 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
 667 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
 668 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
 669
 670       </div>
 671       <div class="tags">
 672
 673
 674         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
 675
 676
 677       </div>
 678     </div>
 679     <div class="padding"></div>
 680
 681     <div class="entry">
 682       <div class="title">
 683         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
 684       </div>
 685       <div class="date">
 686          4th October 2014
 687       </div>
 688       <div class="body">
 689         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
 690 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
 691 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
 692 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
 693
 694 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
 695
 696 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
 697 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
 698 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
 699
 700       </div>
 701       <div class="tags">
 702
 703
 704         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>.
 705
 706
 707       </div>
 708     </div>
 709     <div class="padding"></div>
 710
 711     <div class="entry">
 712       <div class="title">
 713         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
 714       </div>
 715       <div class="date">
 716          4th October 2014
 717       </div>
 718       <div class="body">
 719         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
 720 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
 721 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
 722 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
 723 Dibb.</p>
 724
 725 <p>I just wrapped up
 726 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
 727 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
 728 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
 729 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
 730 0.17.</p>
 731
 732 <ul>
 733
 734  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
 735  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
 736    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
 737  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
 738  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
 739  <li>Fix include orders</li>
 740  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
 741  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
 742  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
 743    the palette size is the same.</li>
 744  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
 745  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
 746  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
 747  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
 748    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
 749
 750 </ul>
 751
 752 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
 753 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
 754 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
 755
 756       </div>
 757       <div class="tags">
 758
 759
 760         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 761
 762
 763       </div>
 764     </div>
 765     <div class="padding"></div>
 766
 767     <div class="entry">
 768       <div class="title">
 769         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
 770       </div>
 771       <div class="date">
 772         26th September 2014
 773       </div>
 774       <div class="body">
 775         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 776 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
 777 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
 778 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
 779 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
 780 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
 781 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
 782 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
 783 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
 784 future.  The
 785 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
 786 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
 787 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
 788 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
 789 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
 790
 791 <p>First, download the test ISO via
 792 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
 793 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
 794 or rsync (use
 795 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
 796 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
 797 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
 798 install with some tweaking.</p>
 799
 800 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
 801 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
 802
 803 <p><blockquote><pre>
 804 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
 805 </pre></blockquote></p>
 806
 807 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
 808 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
 809 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
 810 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
 811
 812 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
 813 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
 814 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
 815 your need.</p>
 816
 817 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
 818 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
 819 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
 820 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
 821 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
 822 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
 823 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
 824 days.</p>
 825
 826 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
 827 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
 828 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
 829 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
 830 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
 831 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
 832 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
 833 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
 834 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
 835
 836 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
 837 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
 838 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
 839
 840       </div>
 841       <div class="tags">
 842
 843
 844         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>.
 845
 846
 847       </div>
 848     </div>
 849     <div class="padding"></div>
 850
 851     <div class="entry">
 852       <div class="title">
 853         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
 854       </div>
 855       <div class="date">
 856         25th September 2014
 857       </div>
 858       <div class="body">
 859         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
 860 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
 861 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
 862 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
 863 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
 864 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
 865 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
 866 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
 867 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
 868 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
 869 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
 870 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
 871 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
 872
 873 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
 874 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
 875 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
 876 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
 877 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
 878 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
 879 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
 880 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
 881 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
 882 list</a>. :)</p>
 883
 884       </div>
 885       <div class="tags">
 886
 887
 888         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 889
 890
 891       </div>
 892     </div>
 893     <div class="padding"></div>
 894
 895     <div class="entry">
 896       <div class="title">
 897         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
 898       </div>
 899       <div class="date">
 900         16th September 2014
 901       </div>
 902       <div class="body">
 903         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
 904 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
 905 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
 906 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
 907 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
 908 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
 909 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
 910 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
 911 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
 912 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
 913 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
 914 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
 915 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
 916 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
 917
 918 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
 919 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
 920 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
 921 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
 922 depend on the small and clever package
 923 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
 924 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
 925 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
 926 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
 927 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
 928 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
 929 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
 930 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
 931 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
 932 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
 933 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
 934
 935 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
 936 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
 937 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
 938 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
 939 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
 940 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
 941 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
 942 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
 943 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
 944 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
 945 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
 946 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
 947 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
 948 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
 949 dialog.</p>
 950
 951 <p><table>
 952
 953 <tr>
 954 <th>Machine/setup</th>
 955 <th>Original tasksel</th>
 956 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
 957 <th>Reduction</th>
 958 </tr>
 959
 960 <tr>
 961 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
 962 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
 963 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
 964 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
 965 </tr>
 966
 967 <tr>
 968 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
 969 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
 970 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
 971 <td>23 min 40%</td>
 972 </tr>
 973
 974 <tr>
 975 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
 976 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
 977 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
 978 <td>11 min 50%</td>
 979 </tr>
 980
 981 <tr>
 982 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
 983 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
 984 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
 985 <td>2 min 33%</td>
 986 </tr>
 987
 988 <tr>
 989 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
 990 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
 991 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
 992 <td>4 min 21%</td>
 993 </tr>
 994
 995 </table></p>
 996
 997 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
 998 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
 999 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
1000 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
1001 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
1002 installed.</p>
1003
1004 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
1005 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
1006 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
1007 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
1008 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
1009 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
1010 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
1011 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
1012 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
1013 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
1014 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
1015 for the entire installation.</p>
1016
1017 <p>I've implemented this in the
1018 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
1019 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
1020 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
1021 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
1022 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
1023
1024 <p><blockquote><pre>
1025 #!/bin/sh
1026 set -e
1027 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1028 info() {
1029     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
1030 }
1031 error() {
1032     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
1033 }
1034 override_install() {
1035     apt-install eatmydata || true
1036     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
1037         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1038             file=/usr/bin/$bin
1039             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
1040             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
1041                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
1042                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
1043                     > /target$file.edu
1044                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
1045                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1046                     --rename --quiet --add $file
1047                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
1048             else
1049                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
1050             fi
1051         done
1052     else
1053         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
1054     fi
1055 }
1056
1057 override_install
1058 </pre></blockquote></p>
1059
1060 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
1061 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
1062
1063 <p><blockquote><pre>
1064 #! /bin/sh -e
1065 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1066 error() {
1067     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
1068 }
1069 remove_install_override() {
1070     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1071         file=/usr/bin/$bin
1072         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
1073             rm /target$file
1074             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1075                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
1076             rm /target$file.edu
1077         else
1078             error "Missing divert for $file."
1079         fi
1080     done
1081     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
1082 }
1083
1084 remove_install_override
1085 </pre></blockquote></p>
1086
1087 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
1088 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
1089 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
1090
1091 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
1092 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
1093 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
1094 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
1095 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
1096 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
1097 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
1098 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
1099 everyone.</p>
1100
1101 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
1102 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
1103 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
1104 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
1105
1106 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
1107 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
1108 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
1109 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
1110 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
1111
1112 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
1113 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
1114 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
1115 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
1116 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
1117
1118       </div>
1119       <div class="tags">
1120
1121
1122         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>.
1123
1124
1125       </div>
1126     </div>
1127     <div class="padding"></div>
1128
1129     <div class="entry">
1130       <div class="title">
1131         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
1132       </div>
1133       <div class="date">
1134         10th September 2014
1135       </div>
1136       <div class="body">
1137         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
1138 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
1139 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
1140 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
1141 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
1142 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
1143 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
1144 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
1145 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
1146 those problems are gone now.</p>
1147
1148 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
1149 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
1150 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
1151 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
1152 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
1153
1154 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
1155 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
1156 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
1157
1158 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
1159 line:</p>
1160
1161 <p><blockquote><pre>
1162 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
1163 </pre></blockquote></p>
1164
1165 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
1166 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
1167 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
1168 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
1169
1170 <p><blockquote><pre>
1171 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
1172 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
1173 %
1174 </pre></blockquote></p>
1175
1176 <p>Now if only
1177 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
1178 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
1179 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
1180 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
1181 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
1182 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
1183 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
1184 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
1185 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
1186
1187       </div>
1188       <div class="tags">
1189
1190
1191         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
1192
1193
1194       </div>
1195     </div>
1196     <div class="padding"></div>
1197
1198     <div class="entry">
1199       <div class="title">
1200         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
1201       </div>
1202       <div class="date">
1203         17th June 2014
1204       </div>
1205       <div class="body">
1206         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1207 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
1208 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
1209 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
1210 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
1211
1212 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
1213 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
1214 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
1215 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
1216 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
1217 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
1218 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
1219 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
1220 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
1221 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
1222 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
1223 goals.</p>
1224
1225 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
1226 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
1227 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
1228 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
1229 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
1230 chapters together into one large web page (aka
1231 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
1232 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
1233 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
1234 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
1235 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
1236 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
1237 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
1238 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
1239 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
1240 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
1241 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
1242 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
1243 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
1244 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
1245 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
1246 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
1247 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
1248 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
1249
1250 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
1251 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
1252 track the English original.  For this we use the
1253 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
1254 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
1255 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
1256 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
1257 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
1258 files), which the translations update with the native language
1259 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
1260 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
1261 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
1262 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
1263 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
1264 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
1265 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
1266 of the documentation.</p>
1267
1268 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
1269 recommend using
1270 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
1271 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
1272 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
1273 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
1274 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
1275 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
1276 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
1277 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
1278
1279 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
1280 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
1281 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
1282 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
1283 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
1284 translated images by storing translated versions in
1285 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
1286 package maintainers know more.</p>
1287
1288 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
1289 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
1290 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
1291 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
1292 PDF version</a> or the
1293 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
1294 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
1295 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
1296
1297 <p>To learn more, check out
1298 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
1299 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
1300 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
1301 manual on the wiki</a> and
1302 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
1303 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
1304
1305       </div>
1306       <div class="tags">
1307
1308
1309         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1310
1311
1312       </div>
1313     </div>
1314     <div class="padding"></div>
1315
1316     <div class="entry">
1317       <div class="title">
1318         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
1319       </div>
1320       <div class="date">
1321         23rd April 2014
1322       </div>
1323       <div class="body">
1324         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
1325 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
1326 So I implemented one, using
1327 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
1328 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
1329 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
1330 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
1331 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
1332 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
1333
1334 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
1335 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
1336 packages to install.  The first part is in
1337 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
1338 this:</p>
1339
1340 <p><blockquote><pre>
1341 Task: isenkram
1342 Section: hardware
1343 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1344  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
1345  proposed.
1346 Test-new-install: mark show
1347 Relevance: 8
1348 Packages: for-current-hardware
1349 </pre></blockquote></p>
1350
1351 <p>The second part is in
1352 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
1353 this:</p>
1354
1355 <p><blockquote><pre>
1356 #!/bin/sh
1357 #
1358 (
1359     isenkram-lookup
1360     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1361 ) | sort -u
1362 </pre></blockquote></p>
1363
1364 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
1365 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
1366 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
1367 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
1368 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
1369 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
1370
1371 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
1372 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
1373 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
1374 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
1375 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
1376 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
1377 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
1378 the python-apt code (bug
1379 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
1380 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
1381 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
1382 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
1383 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
1384 unstable today.</p>
1385
1386 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
1387 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
1388 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
1389 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
1390 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
1391 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
1392 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
1393 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
1394 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
1395
1396 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
1397 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
1398 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
1399 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
1400 package.  See also
1401 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
1402 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
1403 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
1404 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
1405
1406       </div>
1407       <div class="tags">
1408
1409
1410         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>.
1411
1412
1413       </div>
1414     </div>
1415     <div class="padding"></div>
1416
1417     <div class="entry">
1418       <div class="title">
1419         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
1420       </div>
1421       <div class="date">
1422         15th April 2014
1423       </div>
1424       <div class="body">
1425         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1426 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
1427 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
1428 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
1429 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
1430 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
1431
1432 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
1433 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
1434 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
1435 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
1436 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
1437 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
1438 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
1439
1440 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
1441 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
1442 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
1443 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
1444 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
1445 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
1446 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
1447 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
1448 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
1449 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
1450 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
1451 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
1452
1453 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
1454 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
1455 become root:</p>
1456
1457 <p><pre>
1458 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1459   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1460   u-boot-tools
1461 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1462   freedom-maker
1463 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1464 </pre></p>
1465
1466 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1467 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
1468 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
1469 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
1470 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
1471 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
1472 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
1473 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
1474
1475 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1476 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1477 the preseed values:</p>
1478
1479 <p><pre>
1480 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1481 </pre></p>
1482
1483 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
1484 it still work.</p>
1485
1486 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
1487 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
1488 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
1489 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
1490 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
1491 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
1492 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
1493
1494 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1495 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1496 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1497 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1498 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1499 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1500
1501       </div>
1502       <div class="tags">
1503
1504
1505         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1506
1507
1508       </div>
1509     </div>
1510     <div class="padding"></div>
1511
1512     <div class="entry">
1513       <div class="title">
1514         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
1515       </div>
1516       <div class="date">
1517          9th April 2014
1518       </div>
1519       <div class="body">
1520         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
1521 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
1522 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
1523 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
1524 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
1525 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
1526 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
1527 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
1528 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
1529 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
1530 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
1531 have looked at a system called
1532 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
1533 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
1534
1535 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
1536 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
1537 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
1538 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
1539 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
1540 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
1541 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
1542 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
1543 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
1544 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
1545 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
1546 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
1547 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
1548
1549 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
1550 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
1551 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
1552 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
1553 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
1554 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
1555 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
1556 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
1557 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
1558 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
1559 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
1560 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
1561 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
1562 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
1563 account.</p>
1564
1565 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
1566 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
1567 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
1568 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
1569 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
1570 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
1571 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
1572
1573 <p><blockquote><pre>
1574 [s3c]
1575 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1576 backend-login: API-login
1577 backend-password: API-password
1578 fs-passphrase: local-password
1579 </pre></blockquote></p>
1580
1581 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
1582 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
1583 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
1584 details and password to create it:</p>
1585
1586 <p><blockquote><pre>
1587 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
1588 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1589   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1590 Enter backend login:
1591 Enter backend password:
1592 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
1593 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
1594 Enter encryption password:
1595 Confirm encryption password:
1596 Generating random encryption key...
1597 Creating metadata tables...
1598 Dumping metadata...
1599 ..objects..
1600 ..blocks..
1601 ..inodes..
1602 ..inode_blocks..
1603 ..symlink_targets..
1604 ..names..
1605 ..contents..
1606 ..ext_attributes..
1607 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1608 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
1609 # </pre></blockquote></p>
1610
1611 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
1612
1613 <p><blockquote><pre>
1614 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1615   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1616 Using 4 upload threads.
1617 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
1618 Reading metadata...
1619 ..objects..
1620 ..blocks..
1621 ..inodes..
1622 ..inode_blocks..
1623 ..symlink_targets..
1624 ..names..
1625 ..contents..
1626 ..ext_attributes..
1627 Mounting filesystem...
1628 # df -h /s3ql
1629 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
1630 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
1631 #
1632 </pre></blockquote></p>
1633
1634 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
1635 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
1636 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
1637 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
1638 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
1639 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
1640
1641 <p><blockquote><pre>
1642 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
1643 #
1644 </pre></blockquote></p>
1645
1646 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
1647 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
1648 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
1649 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
1650 file system:</p>
1651
1652 <p><blockquote><pre>
1653 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1654 Using cached metadata.
1655 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
1656 Checking DB integrity...
1657 Creating temporary extra indices...
1658 Checking lost+found...
1659 Checking cached objects...
1660 Checking names (refcounts)...
1661 Checking contents (names)...
1662 Checking contents (inodes)...
1663 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
1664 Checking objects (reference counts)...
1665 Checking objects (backend)...
1666 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
1667 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
1668 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
1669 Checking objects (sizes)...
1670 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
1671 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
1672 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
1673 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
1674 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
1675 Checking inodes (sizes)...
1676 Checking extended attributes (names)...
1677 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
1678 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
1679 Checking directory reachability...
1680 Checking unix conventions...
1681 Checking referential integrity...
1682 Dropping temporary indices...
1683 Backing up old metadata...
1684 Dumping metadata...
1685 ..objects..
1686 ..blocks..
1687 ..inodes..
1688 ..inode_blocks..
1689 ..symlink_targets..
1690 ..names..
1691 ..contents..
1692 ..ext_attributes..
1693 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1694 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
1695 #
1696 </pre></blockquote></p>
1697
1698 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
1699 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
1700 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1701 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
1702 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1703 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1704 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
1705 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
1706 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1707 working set.</p>
1708
1709 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
1710 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
1711 busy:</p>
1712
1713 <p><blockquote><pre>
1714 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1715   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1716 Using 8 upload threads.
1717 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
1718 #
1719 </pre></blockquote></p>
1720
1721 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
1722 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
1723 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
1724 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
1725 s3qlctrl:
1726
1727 <p><blockquote><pre>
1728 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
1729 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
1730 #
1731 </pre></blockquote></p>
1732
1733 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
1734 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
1735 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
1736 a report:</p>
1737
1738 <p><blockquote><pre>
1739 # s3qlstat /s3ql
1740 Directory entries:    9141
1741 Inodes:               9143
1742 Data blocks:          8851
1743 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
1744 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
1745 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
1746 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
1747 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
1748 #
1749 </pre></blockquote></p>
1750
1751 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
1752 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
1753 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
1754 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
1755 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
1756 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
1757 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
1758 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
1759 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
1760 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
1761 best.</p>
1762
1763 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
1764 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
1765 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
1766 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
1767 poster is titled
1768 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
1769 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
1770 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
1771 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
1772 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
1773
1774 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
1775 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
1776 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
1777 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
1778 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
1779 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
1780 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
1781 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
1782
1783 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
1784 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
1785 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
1786 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
1787 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
1788 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
1789 only read from it.</p>
1790
1791 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1792 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1793 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1794
1795       </div>
1796       <div class="tags">
1797
1798
1799         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
1800
1801
1802       </div>
1803     </div>
1804     <div class="padding"></div>
1805
1806     <div class="entry">
1807       <div class="title">
1808         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
1809       </div>
1810       <div class="date">
1811         14th March 2014
1812       </div>
1813       <div class="body">
1814         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1815 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
1816 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
1817 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
1818 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
1819 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
1820 release (0.2).</p>
1821
1822 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
1823 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
1824 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
1825 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
1826 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
1827 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
1828 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
1829 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
1830 and build using
1831 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
1832 with a user with sudo access to become root:
1833
1834 <pre>
1835 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1836   freedom-maker
1837 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1838   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1839   u-boot-tools
1840 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1841 </pre>
1842
1843 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1844 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1845 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
1846 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
1847 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
1848 kpartx call.</p>
1849
1850 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1851 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1852 the preseed values:</p>
1853
1854 <pre>
1855 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1856 </pre>
1857
1858 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
1859 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
1860 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
1861 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
1862 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
1863 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
1864
1865 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1866 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1867 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1868 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1869 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1870 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1871
1872       </div>
1873       <div class="tags">
1874
1875
1876         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1877
1878
1879       </div>
1880     </div>
1881     <div class="padding"></div>
1882
1883     <div class="entry">
1884       <div class="title">
1885         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
1886       </div>
1887       <div class="date">
1888         22nd February 2014
1889       </div>
1890       <div class="body">
1891         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
1892 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
1893 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
1894 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
1895 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
1896 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
1897 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
1898 proper home since then.</p>
1899
1900 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
1901 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
1902 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
1903 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
1904 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
1905
1906 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
1907 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
1908 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
1909 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
1910 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
1911 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
1912 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
1913 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
1914 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
1915
1916       </div>
1917       <div class="tags">
1918
1919
1920         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>.
1921
1922
1923       </div>
1924     </div>
1925     <div class="padding"></div>
1926
1927     <div class="entry">
1928       <div class="title">
1929         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
1930       </div>
1931       <div class="date">
1932          3rd February 2014
1933       </div>
1934       <div class="body">
1935         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
1936 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
1937 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
1938 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
1939 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
1940 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
1941 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
1942 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
1943 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
1944
1945 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
1946 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
1947 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
1948 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
1949 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
1950 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
1951
1952 <p><blockquote><pre>
1953 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
1954 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
1955 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
1956 dhclient /dev/eth0
1957 </pre></blockquote></p>
1958
1959 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
1960 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
1961 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
1962
1963 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
1964 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
1965 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
1966 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
1967 side.</p>
1968
1969 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
1970 stuff:</p>
1971
1972 <p><blockquote><pre>
1973 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1974 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
1975 EOF
1976 apt-get update
1977 apt-get dist-upgrade
1978 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
1979     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
1980 update-alternatives --config runsystem
1981 </pre></blockquote></p>
1982
1983 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
1984 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
1985 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
1986 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
1987 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
1988 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
1989 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
1990 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
1991 ssh instead.
1992
1993 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
1994 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
1995 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
1996 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
1997 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
1998 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
1999
2000 <p><blockquote><pre>
2001 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
2002 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
2003 EOF
2004 </pre></blockquote></p>
2005
2006 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
2007 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
2008 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
2009 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
2010
2011 <p><blockquote><pre>
2012 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
2013 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
2014 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
2015 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
2016 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
2017 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
2018 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
2019 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
2020 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
2021 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
2022 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
2023 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
2024 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
2025 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
2026 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
2027 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
2028 #
2029 </pre></blockquote></p>
2030
2031 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
2032 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
2033 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
2034 command line stuff.<p>
2035
2036       </div>
2037       <div class="tags">
2038
2039
2040         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>.
2041
2042
2043       </div>
2044     </div>
2045     <div class="padding"></div>
2046
2047     <div class="entry">
2048       <div class="title">
2049         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
2050       </div>
2051       <div class="date">
2052         14th January 2014
2053       </div>
2054       <div class="body">
2055         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
2056 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
2057 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
2058 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
2059 the source.  The company behind it provide
2060 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
2061 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
2062 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
2063 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
2064 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
2065 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
2066 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
2067 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
2068 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
2069 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
2070 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
2071 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
2072 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
2073 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
2074 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
2075 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
2076 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
2077 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
2078 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
2079
2080 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
2081
2082 <ul>
2083
2084   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
2085   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
2086   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
2087
2088 </ul>
2089
2090 <p>You can
2091 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
2092 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
2093 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
2094 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
2095 include a test suite check.</p>
2096
2097       </div>
2098       <div class="tags">
2099
2100
2101         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2102
2103
2104       </div>
2105     </div>
2106     <div class="padding"></div>
2107
2108     <div class="entry">
2109       <div class="title">
2110         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
2111       </div>
2112       <div class="date">
2113         24th November 2013
2114       </div>
2115       <div class="body">
2116         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
2117 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
2118 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
2119 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
2120 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
2121 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
2122 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
2123 is working on.  I checked the
2124 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
2125 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
2126 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
2127 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
2128 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
2129 These are the release notes:</p>
2130
2131 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
2132
2133 <ul>
2134
2135   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
2136    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
2137    up.</li>
2138
2139   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
2140
2141   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
2142    Matthias Klose.</li>
2143
2144   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
2145    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
2146
2147   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
2148    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
2149    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
2150
2151 </ul>
2152
2153 <p>You can
2154 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
2155 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
2156 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
2157 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
2158 include a testsuite check.</p>
2159
2160       </div>
2161       <div class="tags">
2162
2163
2164         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2165
2166
2167       </div>
2168     </div>
2169     <div class="padding"></div>
2170
2171     <div class="entry">
2172       <div class="title">
2173         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
2174       </div>
2175       <div class="date">
2176          2nd November 2013
2177       </div>
2178       <div class="body">
2179         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
2180 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
2181 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
2182 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
2183 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
2184
2185 <p><pre>
2186 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
2187 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
2188 # Provides:          rsyslog
2189 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
2190 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
2191 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
2192 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
2193 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
2194 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
2195 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
2196 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
2197 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
2198 ### END INIT INFO
2199 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
2200 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
2201 </pre></p>
2202
2203 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
2204 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
2205 info/comments.</p>
2206
2207 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
2208 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
2209
2210 <p><pre>
2211 #!/bin/sh
2212
2213 # Define LSB log_* functions.
2214 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
2215 # and status_of_proc is working.
2216 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
2217
2218 #
2219 # Function that starts the daemon/service
2220
2221 #
2222 do_start()
2223 {
2224         # Return
2225         #   0 if daemon has been started
2226         #   1 if daemon was already running
2227         #   2 if daemon could not be started
2228         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
2229                 || return 1
2230         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
2231                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
2232                 || return 2
2233         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
2234         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
2235         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
2236 }
2237
2238 #
2239 # Function that stops the daemon/service
2240 #
2241 do_stop()
2242 {
2243         # Return
2244         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
2245         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
2246         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
2247         #   other if a failure occurred
2248         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2249         RETVAL="$?"
2250         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
2251         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
2252         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
2253         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
2254         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
2255         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
2256         # sleep for some time.
2257         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
2258         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
2259         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
2260         rm -f $PIDFILE
2261         return "$RETVAL"
2262 }
2263
2264 #
2265 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
2266 #
2267 do_reload() {
2268         #
2269         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
2270         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
2271         # then implement that here.
2272         #
2273         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2274         return 0
2275 }
2276
2277 SCRIPTNAME=$1
2278 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
2279 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
2280 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
2281     script="$1"
2282     shift
2283     . $script
2284 else
2285     exit 0
2286 fi
2287
2288 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
2289 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
2290
2291 # Exit if the package is not installed
2292 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
2293
2294 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
2295 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
2296
2297 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
2298 . /lib/init/vars.sh
2299
2300 case "$1" in
2301   start)
2302         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
2303         do_start
2304         case "$?" in
2305                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2306                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2307         esac
2308         ;;
2309   stop)
2310         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
2311         do_stop
2312         case "$?" in
2313                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2314                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2315         esac
2316         ;;
2317   status)
2318         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
2319         ;;
2320   #reload|force-reload)
2321         #
2322         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
2323         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
2324         #
2325         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
2326         #do_reload
2327         #log_end_msg $?
2328         #;;
2329   restart|force-reload)
2330         #
2331         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
2332         # 'force-reload' alias
2333         #
2334         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
2335         do_stop
2336         case "$?" in
2337           0|1)
2338                 do_start
2339                 case "$?" in
2340                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
2341                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
2342                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
2343                 esac
2344                 ;;
2345           *)
2346                 # Failed to stop
2347                 log_end_msg 1
2348                 ;;
2349         esac
2350         ;;
2351   *)
2352         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
2353         exit 3
2354         ;;
2355 esac
2356
2357 :
2358 </pre></p>
2359
2360 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
2361 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
2362 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
2363 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
2364
2365 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
2366 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
2367 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
2368 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
2369 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
2370
2371       </div>
2372       <div class="tags">
2373
2374
2375         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>.
2376
2377
2378       </div>
2379     </div>
2380     <div class="padding"></div>
2381
2382     <div class="entry">
2383       <div class="title">
2384         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
2385       </div>
2386       <div class="date">
2387          1st November 2013
2388       </div>
2389       <div class="body">
2390         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
2391 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
2392 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
2393 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
2394 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
2395 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
2396 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
2397 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
2398 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
2399 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
2400 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
2401 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
2402
2403 <p>The source is now available from
2404 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
2405
2406       </div>
2407       <div class="tags">
2408
2409
2410         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>.
2411
2412
2413       </div>
2414     </div>
2415     <div class="padding"></div>
2416
2417     <div class="entry">
2418       <div class="title">
2419         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
2420       </div>
2421       <div class="date">
2422         27th October 2013
2423       </div>
2424       <div class="body">
2425         <p>The
2426 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
2427 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
2428 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
2429 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
2430 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
2431 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
2432 of a plan to simplify the build system for
2433 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
2434 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
2435 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
2436 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
2437 Raspberry Pi.</p>
2438
2439 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
2440 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
2441 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
2442 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
2443 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
2444 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
2445 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
2446 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
2447 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
2448 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
2449 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
2450 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
2451 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
2452 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
2453 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
2454 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
2455 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
2456 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
2457 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
2458 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
2459 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
2460 available from
2461 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
2462 upstream project page</a>.</p>
2463
2464 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
2465 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
2466 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
2467 list:</p>
2468
2469 <p><pre>
2470 #!/bin/sh
2471 set -e # Exit on first error
2472 rootdir="$1"
2473 cd "$rootdir"
2474 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
2475 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
2476 EOF
2477 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
2478 # install a kernel somewhere too.
2479 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
2480     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2481 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2482 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
2483 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
2484 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
2485 </pre></p>
2486
2487 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
2488 to build the image:</p>
2489
2490 <pre>
2491 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
2492     --variant minbase \
2493     --arch armel \
2494     --distribution jessie \
2495     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
2496     --image test.img \
2497     --size 600M \
2498     --bootsize 64M \
2499     --boottype vfat \
2500     --log-level debug \
2501     --verbose \
2502     --no-kernel \
2503     --no-extlinux \
2504     --root-password raspberry \
2505     --hostname raspberrypi \
2506     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
2507     --customize `pwd`/customize \
2508     --package netbase \
2509     --package git-core \
2510     --package binutils \
2511     --package ca-certificates \
2512     --package wget \
2513     --package kmod
2514 </pre></p>
2515
2516 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
2517 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
2518 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
2519 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
2520 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
2521 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
2522 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
2523
2524 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
2525 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
2526 build dependency list.</p>
2527
2528 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
2529 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
2530 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
2531 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
2532
2533       </div>
2534       <div class="tags">
2535
2536
2537         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
2538
2539
2540       </div>
2541     </div>
2542     <div class="padding"></div>
2543
2544     <div class="entry">
2545       <div class="title">
2546         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
2547       </div>
2548       <div class="date">
2549         15th October 2013
2550       </div>
2551       <div class="body">
2552         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
2553 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
2554 these. :)</p>
2555
2556 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
2557 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
2558 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
2559 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
2560 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
2561 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
2562 hope you will to. :)</p>
2563
2564 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
2565 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
2566 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
2567 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
2568 donated.  Are you next?</p>
2569
2570 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
2571 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
2572 statement under the heading
2573 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
2574 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
2575 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
2576 too.</p>
2577
2578       </div>
2579       <div class="tags">
2580
2581
2582         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2583
2584
2585       </div>
2586     </div>
2587     <div class="padding"></div>
2588
2589     <div class="entry">
2590       <div class="title">
2591         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
2592       </div>
2593       <div class="date">
2594         27th September 2013
2595       </div>
2596       <div class="body">
2597         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
2598 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
2599 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
2600 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
2601
2602 <ul>
2603
2604 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
2605 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
2606
2607 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
2608 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2609
2610 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
2611 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
2612 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
2613 (Youtube)</li>
2614
2615 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
2616 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
2617
2618 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
2619 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2620
2621 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
2622 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
2623 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
2624
2625 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
2626 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
2627 (Youtube)</li>
2628
2629 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
2630 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
2631
2632 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
2633 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
2634
2635 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
2636 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2637 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
2638
2639 </ul>
2640
2641 <p>A larger list is available from
2642 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
2643 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
2644
2645 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
2646 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
2647 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
2648 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
2649 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
2650 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
2651 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
2652 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
2653 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
2654 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2655 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2656
2657       </div>
2658       <div class="tags">
2659
2660
2661         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2662
2663
2664       </div>
2665     </div>
2666     <div class="padding"></div>
2667
2668     <div class="entry">
2669       <div class="title">
2670         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
2671       </div>
2672       <div class="date">
2673         10th September 2013
2674       </div>
2675       <div class="body">
2676         <p>I was introduced to the
2677 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
2678 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2679 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2680 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
2681 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2682 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
2683 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2684 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
2685
2686 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2687 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2688 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
2689 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2690 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
2691
2692 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
2693 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2694 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2695 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2696 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
2697 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
2698 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
2699 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2700 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2701 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2702 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2703 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2704 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2705 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2706 missing in Debian).</p>
2707
2708 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2709 scripts
2710 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
2711 and a administrative web interface
2712 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
2713 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2714 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
2715 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2716 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
2717 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2718 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
2719 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2720 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
2721 this is really working yet, see
2722 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
2723 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
2724 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2725 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2726 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2727 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2728 with lots of half baked features.</p>
2729
2730 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2731 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2732 at.</p>
2733
2734 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
2735
2736 <ol>
2737
2738 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
2739 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
2740 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2741 to the Debian installer:<p>
2742 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
2743
2744 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2745 install on.</li>
2746
2747 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2748 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
2749
2750 </ol>
2751
2752 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
2753
2754 <ol>
2755
2756 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
2757 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
2758 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
2759 <pre>
2760 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
2761 </pre></li>
2762 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
2763 <pre>
2764 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2765    apt-key add -
2766 apt-get update
2767 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2768 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2769 </pre></li>
2770 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
2771
2772 </ol>
2773
2774 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2775 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2776 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2777 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
2778 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
2779
2780 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2781 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2782 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2783 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
2784
2785 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2786 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
2787 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
2788 irc.debian.org and the
2789 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
2790 mailing list</a>.</p>
2791
2792 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2793 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
2794 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2795 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
2796 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
2797 default password is 'secret'.</p>
2798
2799       </div>
2800       <div class="tags">
2801
2802
2803         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2804
2805
2806       </div>
2807     </div>
2808     <div class="padding"></div>
2809
2810     <div class="entry">
2811       <div class="title">
2812         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
2813       </div>
2814       <div class="date">
2815         18th August 2013
2816       </div>
2817       <div class="body">
2818         <p>Earlier, I reported about
2819 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
2820 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
2821 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
2822 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2823 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2824 currently on the disk.</p>
2825
2826 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2827 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
2828 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2829 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2830 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2831 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
2832 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2833 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
2834 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2835 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
2836 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
2837 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2838 the broken disks.</p>
2839
2840       </div>
2841       <div class="tags">
2842
2843
2844         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2845
2846
2847       </div>
2848     </div>
2849     <div class="padding"></div>
2850
2851     <div class="entry">
2852       <div class="title">
2853         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
2854       </div>
2855       <div class="date">
2856         17th July 2013
2857       </div>
2858       <div class="body">
2859         <p>Today I switched to
2860 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
2861 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
2862 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2863 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
2864 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
2865 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2866 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2867 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2868 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
2869 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2870 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2871 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2872 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2873 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2874 station from now on.</p>
2875
2876 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2877 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2878 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
2879 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2880 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2881 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
2882 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
2883 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
2884 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2885 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2886 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2887 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
2888
2889 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2890 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
2891 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2892 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2893 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
2894 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
2895 parameters are tuned:</p>
2896
2897 <ul>
2898
2899 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2900     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
2901
2902 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2903     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2904     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
2905
2906 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2907     systems.</li>
2908
2909 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
2910     /etc/fstab.</li>
2911
2912 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
2913
2914 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2915     cron.daily).</li>
2916
2917 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2918     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
2919
2920 </ul>
2921
2922 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2923 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2924 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2925 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2926 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2927 from getting the data on the disk (see
2928 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
2929 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2930 right thing to do.</p>
2931
2932 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2933 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2934 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
2935
2936 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
2937 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2938 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2939 instead of during my work.</p>
2940
2941 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2942 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
2943
2944 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
2945 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2946 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
2947
2948 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2949 there.</p>
2950
2951 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2952 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2953 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2954 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2955 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2956 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2957 back.</p>
2958
2959       </div>
2960       <div class="tags">
2961
2962
2963         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>.
2964
2965
2966       </div>
2967     </div>
2968     <div class="padding"></div>
2969
2970     <div class="entry">
2971       <div class="title">
2972         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
2973       </div>
2974       <div class="date">
2975         10th July 2013
2976       </div>
2977       <div class="body">
2978         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
2979 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
2980 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
2981 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2982 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
2983 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
2984 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
2985 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
2986
2987 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2988 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
2989 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
2990 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2991 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2992 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
2993 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
2994 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
2995 lock up when I download a new
2996 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
2997 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2998 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
2999
3000 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
3001 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
3002 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
3003 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
3004 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
3005 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
3006
3007 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
3008 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
3009 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
3010 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
3011 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
3012 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
3013
3014 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
3015 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
3016 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
3017 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
3018 exist).</p>
3019
3020       </div>
3021       <div class="tags">
3022
3023
3024         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>.
3025
3026
3027       </div>
3028     </div>
3029     <div class="padding"></div>
3030
3031     <div class="entry">
3032       <div class="title">
3033         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
3034       </div>
3035       <div class="date">
3036          9th July 2013
3037       </div>
3038       <div class="body">
3039         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
3040 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
3041 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
3042 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
3043 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3044 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
3045 Bitraf</a>.</p>
3046
3047 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
3048 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
3049 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
3050 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
3051 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
3052
3053       </div>
3054       <div class="tags">
3055
3056
3057         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>.
3058
3059
3060       </div>
3061     </div>
3062     <div class="padding"></div>
3063
3064     <div class="entry">
3065       <div class="title">
3066         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
3067       </div>
3068       <div class="date">
3069          5th July 2013
3070       </div>
3071       <div class="body">
3072         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
3073 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
3074 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
3075 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
3076 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
3077 ended up picking a
3078 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
3079 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
3080 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
3081 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
3082 on that below.</p>
3083
3084 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3085 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3086 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3087 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3088 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3089 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
3090 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
3091 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
3092 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
3093
3094 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
3095 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
3096 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
3097 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
3098 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
3099 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
3100 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
3101
3102 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
3103 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
3104
3105 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
3106 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
3107 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
3108 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
3109 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
3110 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
3111 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
3112 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
3113 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
3114 kernel developers as
3115 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
3116 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
3117 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
3118 Lenovo forums, both for
3119 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
3120 2012-11-10</a> and for
3121 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
3122 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
3123 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
3124 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
3125 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
3126 There is even a
3127 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
3128 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
3129 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
3130
3131 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
3132 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
3133 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
3134 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
3135 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
3136 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
3137 fixed. :)</p>
3138
3139       </div>
3140       <div class="tags">
3141
3142
3143         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>.
3144
3145
3146       </div>
3147     </div>
3148     <div class="padding"></div>
3149
3150     <div class="entry">
3151       <div class="title">
3152         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
3153       </div>
3154       <div class="date">
3155          4th July 2013
3156       </div>
3157       <div class="body">
3158         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
3159 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
3160 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
3161 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
3162 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
3163 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
3164 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
3165 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
3166 with an expencive door stop.</p>
3167
3168 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3169 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3170 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3171 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3172 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3173 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
3174 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
3175
3176 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
3177 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
3178 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
3179 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
3180 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
3181 new laptop now. :)</p>
3182
3183 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
3184
3185       </div>
3186       <div class="tags">
3187
3188
3189         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>.
3190
3191
3192       </div>
3193     </div>
3194     <div class="padding"></div>
3195
3196     <div class="entry">
3197       <div class="title">
3198         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
3199       </div>
3200       <div class="date">
3201         25th June 2013
3202       </div>
3203       <div class="body">
3204         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
3205 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
3206 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
3207 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
3208 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
3209 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
3210 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
3211 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
3212 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
3213 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
3214 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
3215
3216 <p><pre>
3217 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3218 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
3219 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
3220 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
3221 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
3222 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
3223 firmware-ipw2x00
3224 firmware-ipw2x00
3225 Preconfiguring packages ...
3226 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
3227 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
3228 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
3229 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
3230 #
3231 </pre></p>
3232
3233 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
3234 printed instead:</p>
3235
3236 <p><pre>
3237 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3238 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
3239 #
3240 </pre></p>
3241
3242 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
3243 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
3244
3245 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
3246 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
3247 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
3248 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
3249 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
3250 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
3251 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
3252 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
3253 machine.</p>
3254
3255 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
3256 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
3257 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
3258 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
3259 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
3260 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
3261
3262       </div>
3263       <div class="tags">
3264
3265
3266         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>.
3267
3268
3269       </div>
3270     </div>
3271     <div class="padding"></div>
3272
3273     <div class="entry">
3274       <div class="title">
3275         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
3276       </div>
3277       <div class="date">
3278         11th June 2013
3279       </div>
3280       <div class="body">
3281         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
3282 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
3283 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
3284 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
3285 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
3286 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
3287 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
3288 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
3289 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
3290 i915 driver used by the
3291 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3292 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
3293
3294 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
3295 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
3296 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
3297 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
3298 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
3299
3300 <pre>
3301 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
3302 update-initramfs -u -k all
3303 </pre>
3304
3305 <p>Since March 2012 there is
3306 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
3307 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
3308 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
3309 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
3310 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
3311 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
3312 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
3313 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
3314 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
3315 number.</p>
3316
3317 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
3318 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
3319
3320 <p><pre>
3321 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
3322     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
3323     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
3324  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
3325  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
3326     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
3327  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
3328     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
3329  Latency: 0
3330  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
3331  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
3332  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
3333  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
3334  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
3335  Capabilities: <access denied>
3336  Kernel driver in use: i915
3337 </pre></p>
3338
3339 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
3340
3341 <p><pre>
3342 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
3343        ...
3344         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
3345         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
3346        ...
3347 }
3348 </pre></p>
3349
3350 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
3351 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
3352 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
3353 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
3354 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
3355 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
3356 yet shown up in
3357 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
3358 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
3359 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
3360 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
3361 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
3362 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
3363
3364 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
3365 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
3366 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
3367 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
3368 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
3369 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
3370 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
3371 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
3372 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
3373 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
3374 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
3375 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
3376
3377 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
3378 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
3379 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
3380 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
3381 backlight.</p>
3382
3383       </div>
3384       <div class="tags">
3385
3386
3387         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>.
3388
3389
3390       </div>
3391     </div>
3392     <div class="padding"></div>
3393
3394     <div class="entry">
3395       <div class="title">
3396         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
3397       </div>
3398       <div class="date">
3399         27th May 2013
3400       </div>
3401       <div class="body">
3402         <p>Two days ago, I asked
3403 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
3404 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
3405 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
3406 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
3407 and Windows 8.</p>
3408
3409 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
3410 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
3411 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
3412 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
3413 enough to tell.</p>
3414
3415 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
3416 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
3417 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
3418 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
3419 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
3420 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
3421 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
3422 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
3423 to follow.</p>
3424
3425 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
3426 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
3427 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
3428 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
3429 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
3430 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
3431 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
3432 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
3433
3434 <p>I've updated the
3435 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
3436 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
3437 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
3438 machine.</p>
3439
3440 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
3441 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
3442
3443       </div>
3444       <div class="tags">
3445
3446
3447         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>.
3448
3449
3450       </div>
3451     </div>
3452     <div class="padding"></div>
3453
3454     <div class="entry">
3455       <div class="title">
3456         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
3457       </div>
3458       <div class="date">
3459         25th May 2013
3460       </div>
3461       <div class="body">
3462         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
3463 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
3464 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
3465 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
3466 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
3467 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
3468
3469 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
3470 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
3471 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
3472 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
3473 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
3474 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
3475 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
3476 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
3477 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
3478 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
3479
3480 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
3481 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3482 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
3483 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
3484 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
3485 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
3486
3487 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
3488 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
3489 on new Laptops?</p>
3490
3491       </div>
3492       <div class="tags">
3493
3494
3495         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>.
3496
3497
3498       </div>
3499     </div>
3500     <div class="padding"></div>
3501
3502     <div class="entry">
3503       <div class="title">
3504         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
3505       </div>
3506       <div class="date">
3507         17th May 2013
3508       </div>
3509       <div class="body">
3510         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
3511 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
3512 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
3513 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
3514 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
3515 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
3516 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
3517 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
3518 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
3519 donate some money</a>.
3520
3521 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
3522 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
3523 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
3524 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
3525 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
3526
3527 <p>The script,
3528 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
3529 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
3530 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
3531 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
3532
3533 <ol>
3534
3535 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
3536 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
3537 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
3538     our configuration.</li>
3539 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
3540     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
3541     according to the profile specified in the config above,
3542     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
3543 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
3544     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
3545 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
3546
3547 </ol>
3548
3549 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
3550 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
3551 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
3552 the needed packages.</p>
3553
3554 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
3555 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
3556 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
3557 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
3558 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
3559 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
3560
3561 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
3562 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
3563 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
3564
3565 <p><pre>
3566 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
3567 DESKTOP="lxde"
3568 </pre></p>
3569
3570 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
3571 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
3572 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
3573 boot.</p>
3574
3575       </div>
3576       <div class="tags">
3577
3578
3579         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>.
3580
3581
3582       </div>
3583     </div>
3584     <div class="padding"></div>
3585
3586     <div class="entry">
3587       <div class="title">
3588         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
3589       </div>
3590       <div class="date">
3591         11th May 2013
3592       </div>
3593       <div class="body">
3594         <P>In January,
3595 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
3596 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
3597 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
3598 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
3599 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
3600 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
3601 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
3602 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
3603 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
3604 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
3605 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
3606 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
3607
3608 <p><table>
3609 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
3610 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
3611 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
3612 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
3613 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
3614 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
3615 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
3616 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
3617 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
3618 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
3619 </table></p>
3620
3621 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
3622 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
3623 available in experimental.</p>
3624
3625 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
3626 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
3627 for LEGO designers.</p>
3628
3629       </div>
3630       <div class="tags">
3631
3632
3633         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>.
3634
3635
3636       </div>
3637     </div>
3638     <div class="padding"></div>
3639
3640     <div class="entry">
3641       <div class="title">
3642         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
3643       </div>
3644       <div class="date">
3645          5th May 2013
3646       </div>
3647       <div class="body">
3648         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
3649 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
3650 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
3651 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
3652 soon.</p>
3653
3654 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
3655 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
3656 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
3657 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
3658 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
3659 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
3660 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
3661 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
3662 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
3663 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
3664 Edu.</a>
3665
3666 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
3667 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
3668 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
3669 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
3670 follow.<p>
3671
3672       </div>
3673       <div class="tags">
3674
3675
3676         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>.
3677
3678
3679       </div>
3680     </div>
3681     <div class="padding"></div>
3682
3683     <div class="entry">
3684       <div class="title">
3685         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
3686       </div>
3687       <div class="date">
3688          3rd April 2013
3689       </div>
3690       <div class="body">
3691         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
3692 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
3693 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
3694 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
3695
3696 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
3697 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
3698 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
3699 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
3700 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
3701 BTS. :)</p>
3702
3703       </div>
3704       <div class="tags">
3705
3706
3707         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>.
3708
3709
3710       </div>
3711     </div>
3712     <div class="padding"></div>
3713
3714     <div class="entry">
3715       <div class="title">
3716         <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>
3717       </div>
3718       <div class="date">
3719          2nd February 2013
3720       </div>
3721       <div class="body">
3722         <p>My
3723 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
3724 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
3725 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
3726 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
3727 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
3728 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
3729 version too.</p>
3730
3731 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
3732 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
3733 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
3734 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
3735 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
3736 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
3737 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
3738 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
3739
3740 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
3741 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
3742 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
3743 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
3744 it. :)</p>
3745
3746 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3747 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3748 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3749
3750       </div>
3751       <div class="tags">
3752
3753
3754         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>.
3755
3756
3757       </div>
3758     </div>
3759     <div class="padding"></div>
3760
3761     <div class="entry">
3762       <div class="title">
3763         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
3764       </div>
3765       <div class="date">
3766         22nd January 2013
3767       </div>
3768       <div class="body">
3769         <p>Yesterday, I
3770 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
3771 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
3772 pluggable hardware devices, which I
3773 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
3774 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
3775 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
3776 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
3777 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
3778 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
3779 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
3780 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
3781 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
3782 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
3783
3784 <pre>
3785 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
3786 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
3787 </pre>
3788
3789 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
3790 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
3791 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
3792 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
3793
3794 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
3795 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
3796 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
3797 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
3798 word.</p>
3799
3800 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
3801 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
3802 process.</p>
3803
3804 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
3805 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
3806
3807       </div>
3808       <div class="tags">
3809
3810
3811         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>.
3812
3813
3814       </div>
3815     </div>
3816     <div class="padding"></div>
3817
3818     <div class="entry">
3819       <div class="title">
3820         <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>
3821       </div>
3822       <div class="date">
3823         21st January 2013
3824       </div>
3825       <div class="body">
3826         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
3827 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
3828 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
3829 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
3830 it, fetch the
3831 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
3832 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
3833 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
3834 autostart script.</p>
3835
3836 <p>The design is simple:</p>
3837
3838 <ul>
3839
3840 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
3841 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
3842
3843 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3844 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3845 initially did.</li>
3846
3847 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3848 the APT database, a database
3849 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
3850 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
3851
3852 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3853 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3854 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3855 package or packages.</li>
3856
3857 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
3858 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
3859
3860 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3861 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
3862
3863 </ul>
3864
3865 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
3866 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
3867 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3868 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
3869
3870 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
3871 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
3872 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
3873 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
3874 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
3875
3876 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3877 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
3878 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3879 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3880 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3881 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3882 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3883 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
3884
3885 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
3886 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3887 '<tt>svn checkout
3888 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3889 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
3890 devscripts package.</p>
3891
3892 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
3893 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3894 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
3895 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
3896 instructions</a> for details.</p>
3897
3898       </div>
3899       <div class="tags">
3900
3901
3902         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>.
3903
3904
3905       </div>
3906     </div>
3907     <div class="padding"></div>
3908
3909     <div class="entry">
3910       <div class="title">
3911         <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>
3912       </div>
3913       <div class="date">
3914         19th January 2013
3915       </div>
3916       <div class="body">
3917         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
3918 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
3919 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
3920 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
3921 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
3922 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
3923 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
3924 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
3925 not a durable solution.
3926
3927 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
3928 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
3929
3930 <ul>
3931
3932 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
3933   than A4).</li>
3934 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
3935 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
3936 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
3937 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
3938 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
3939 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
3940 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
3941 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
3942 size).</li>
3943 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
3944   X.org packages.</li>
3945 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
3946   the time).
3947
3948 </ul>
3949
3950 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
3951 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
3952 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
3953 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
3954 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
3955 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
3956 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
3957 still be useful.</p>
3958
3959 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
3960 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
3961 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
3962 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
3963 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
3964 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
3965
3966       </div>
3967       <div class="tags">
3968
3969
3970         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>.
3971
3972
3973       </div>
3974     </div>
3975     <div class="padding"></div>
3976
3977     <div class="entry">
3978       <div class="title">
3979         <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>
3980       </div>
3981       <div class="date">
3982         18th January 2013
3983       </div>
3984       <div class="body">
3985         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
3986 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
3987 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
3988 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
3989 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
3990 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
3991 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
3992
3993 <pre>
3994 #!/usr/bin/python
3995 import sys
3996 import apt
3997 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3998     cache = apt.Cache()
3999     cache.open(None)
4000     thepkgs = []
4001     for pkg in cache:
4002         version = pkg.candidate
4003         if version is None:
4004             version = pkg.installed
4005         if version is None:
4006             continue
4007         record = version.record
4008         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
4009             continue
4010         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
4011         for t in mime_types:
4012             t = t.rstrip().strip()
4013             if t == mimetype:
4014                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
4015     return thepkgs
4016 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
4017 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
4018     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
4019 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
4020 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
4021     print "  %s" %pkg
4022 </pre>
4023
4024 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
4025
4026 <pre>
4027 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
4028 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
4029   gecko-mediaplayer
4030 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
4031 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
4032   browser-plugin-gnash
4033 %
4034 </pre>
4035
4036 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
4037 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
4038 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
4039 anyone working on adding it?</p>
4040
4041 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
4042 request for icweasel support for this feature is
4043 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
4044 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
4045 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
4046 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
4047
4048       </div>
4049       <div class="tags">
4050
4051
4052         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>.
4053
4054
4055       </div>
4056     </div>
4057     <div class="padding"></div>
4058
4059     <div class="entry">
4060       <div class="title">
4061         <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>
4062       </div>
4063       <div class="date">
4064         16th January 2013
4065       </div>
4066       <div class="body">
4067         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
4068 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
4069 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
4070 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
4071 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
4072 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
4073 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
4074 downloaded by the browser.</p>
4075
4076 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
4077 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
4078 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
4079 can be found on the
4080 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
4081 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
4082 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
4083 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
4084 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
4085
4086 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
4087
4088 <pre>
4089   count MIME type
4090   ----- -----------------------
4091      32 text/plain
4092      30 audio/mpeg
4093      29 image/png
4094      28 image/jpeg
4095      27 application/ogg
4096      26 audio/x-mp3
4097      25 image/tiff
4098      25 image/gif
4099      22 image/bmp
4100      22 audio/x-wav
4101      20 audio/x-flac
4102      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4103      18 video/x-ms-asf
4104      18 audio/x-musepack
4105      18 audio/x-mpeg
4106      18 application/x-ogg
4107      17 video/mpeg
4108      17 audio/x-scpls
4109      17 audio/ogg
4110      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4111 </pre>
4112
4113 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
4114
4115 <pre>
4116   count MIME type
4117   ----- -----------------------
4118      33 text/plain
4119      32 image/png
4120      32 image/jpeg
4121      29 audio/mpeg
4122      27 image/gif
4123      26 image/tiff
4124      26 application/ogg
4125      25 audio/x-mp3
4126      22 image/bmp
4127      21 audio/x-wav
4128      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4129      19 audio/x-mpeg
4130      18 video/mpeg
4131      18 audio/x-scpls
4132      18 audio/x-flac
4133      18 application/x-ogg
4134      17 video/x-ms-asf
4135      17 text/html
4136      17 audio/x-musepack
4137      16 image/x-xbitmap
4138 </pre>
4139
4140 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
4141
4142 <pre>
4143   count MIME type
4144   ----- -----------------------
4145      31 text/plain
4146      31 image/png
4147      31 image/jpeg
4148      29 audio/mpeg
4149      28 application/ogg
4150      27 image/gif
4151      26 image/tiff
4152      26 audio/x-mp3
4153      23 audio/x-wav
4154      22 image/bmp
4155      21 audio/x-flac
4156      20 audio/x-mpegurl
4157      19 audio/x-mpeg
4158      18 video/x-ms-asf
4159      18 video/mpeg
4160      18 audio/x-scpls
4161      18 application/x-ogg
4162      17 audio/x-musepack
4163      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4164      16 video/x-msvideo
4165 </pre>
4166
4167 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
4168 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
4169 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
4170 issues.</p>
4171
4172 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
4173 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
4174
4175       </div>
4176       <div class="tags">
4177
4178
4179         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>.
4180
4181
4182       </div>
4183     </div>
4184     <div class="padding"></div>
4185
4186     <div class="entry">
4187       <div class="title">
4188         <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>
4189       </div>
4190       <div class="date">
4191         15th January 2013
4192       </div>
4193       <div class="body">
4194         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
4195 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
4196 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
4197 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
4198 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
4199 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
4200 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
4201 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
4202 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
4203 packages.</p>
4204
4205 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
4206 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
4207 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
4208 modalias.</p>
4209
4210 <p><blockquote>
4211 Package: package-name
4212 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
4213 </blockquote></p>
4214
4215 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
4216 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
4217
4218 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
4219 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
4220
4221 <p><blockquote>
4222 Package: cheese
4223 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
4224 </blockquote></p>
4225
4226 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
4227 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
4228
4229 <p><blockquote>
4230 Package: pcmciautils
4231 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
4232 </blockquote></p>
4233
4234 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
4235 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
4236
4237 <p><blockquote>
4238 Package: colorhug-client
4239 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
4240 </blockquote></p>
4241
4242 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
4243 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
4244 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
4245
4246 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
4247 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
4248 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
4249 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
4250 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
4251 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
4252 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
4253 Raring.</p>
4254
4255 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
4256 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
4257 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
4258 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
4259 try the
4260 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
4261 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
4262 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
4263 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
4264
4265 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
4266 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
4267
4268 <p><blockquote>
4269 % ./hw-support-lookup
4270 <br>yubikey-personalization
4271 <br>%
4272 </blockquote></p>
4273
4274 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
4275 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
4276
4277 <p><blockquote>
4278 % ./hw-support-lookup
4279 <br>pcmciautils
4280 <br>%
4281 </blockquote></p>
4282
4283 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
4284 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
4285 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
4286
4287 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
4288 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
4289 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
4290 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
4291 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
4292 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
4293 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
4294 see if it work.</p>
4295
4296 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4297 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4298 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4299 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4300
4301       </div>
4302       <div class="tags">
4303
4304
4305         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>.
4306
4307
4308       </div>
4309     </div>
4310     <div class="padding"></div>
4311
4312     <div class="entry">
4313       <div class="title">
4314         <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>
4315       </div>
4316       <div class="date">
4317         14th January 2013
4318       </div>
4319       <div class="body">
4320         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
4321 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
4322 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
4323 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
4324 in
4325 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4326 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
4327
4328 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
4329
4330 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
4331 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
4332 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
4333 &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;,
4334 &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
4335 &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;.
4336
4337 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
4338 this shell script:</p>
4339
4340 <pre>
4341 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
4342 </pre>
4343
4344 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
4345 using modinfo:</p>
4346
4347 <pre>
4348 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
4349 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
4350 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
4351 %
4352 </pre>
4353
4354 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
4355
4356 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
4357 Bridge memory controller:</p>
4358
4359 <p><blockquote>
4360 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
4361 </blockquote></p>
4362
4363 <p>This represent these values:</p>
4364
4365 <pre>
4366  v   00008086  (vendor)
4367  d   00002770  (device)
4368  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
4369  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
4370  bc  06        (bus class)
4371  sc  00        (bus subclass)
4372  i   00        (interface)
4373 </pre>
4374
4375 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
4376 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
4377 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
4378 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
4379
4380 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
4381 means.</p>
4382
4383 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
4384
4385 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
4386 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
4387
4388 <p><blockquote>
4389 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
4390 </blockquote></p>
4391
4392 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
4393
4394 <pre>
4395  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
4396  p    0001  (device product)
4397  d    0206  (bcddevice)
4398  dc     09  (device class)
4399  dsc    00  (device subclass)
4400  dp     00  (device protocol)
4401  ic     09  (interface class)
4402  isc    00  (interface subclass)
4403  ip     00  (interface protocol)
4404 </pre>
4405
4406 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
4407 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
4408 these alias entries show up:</p>
4409
4410 <p><blockquote>
4411 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
4412 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
4413 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
4414 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
4415 </blockquote></p>
4416
4417 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
4418 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
4419 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
4420
4421 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
4422
4423 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
4424 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
4425
4426 <p><blockquote>
4427 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4428 </blockquote></p>
4429
4430 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
4431
4432 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
4433
4434 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
4435 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
4436 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
4437
4438 <p><blockquote>
4439 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
4440 </blockquote></p>
4441
4442 <p>The values present are</p>
4443
4444 <pre>
4445  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
4446  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
4447  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
4448  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
4449  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
4450  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
4451  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
4452  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
4453  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
4454  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
4455  ct   10             (chassis type)
4456  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
4457 </pre>
4458
4459 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
4460 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
4461
4462 <pre>
4463   3 Desktop
4464   4 Low Profile Desktop
4465   5 Pizza Box
4466   6 Mini Tower
4467   7 Tower
4468   8 Portable
4469   9 Laptop
4470  10 Notebook
4471  11 Hand Held
4472  12 Docking Station
4473  13 All In One
4474  14 Sub Notebook
4475  15 Space-saving
4476  16 Lunch Box
4477  17 Main Server Chassis
4478  18 Expansion Chassis
4479  19 Sub Chassis
4480  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
4481  21 Peripheral Chassis
4482  22 RAID Chassis
4483  23 Rack Mount Chassis
4484  24 Sealed-case PC
4485  25 Multi-system
4486  26 CompactPCI
4487  27 AdvancedTCA
4488  28 Blade
4489  29 Blade Enclosing
4490 </pre>
4491
4492 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
4493 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
4494 claim it is a desktop.</p>
4495
4496 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
4497
4498 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
4499 test machine:</p>
4500
4501 <p><blockquote>
4502 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
4503 </blockquote></p>
4504
4505 <p>The values present are</p>
4506
4507 <pre>
4508   ty  01  (type)
4509   pr  00  (prototype)
4510   id  00  (id)
4511   ex  00  (extra)
4512 </pre>
4513
4514 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
4515 the valid values are.</p>
4516
4517 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
4518
4519 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
4520 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
4521 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
4522 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
4523 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
4524 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
4525 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
4526
4527 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
4528
4529 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
4530 one can use the following shell script:</p>
4531
4532 <pre>
4533   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
4534     echo "$id" ; \
4535     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
4536   done
4537 </pre>
4538
4539 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
4540 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
4541
4542 <pre>
4543   acpi:ACPI0003:
4544     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
4545   acpi:device:
4546   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
4547   acpi:IBM0068:
4548     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
4549     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
4550     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
4551     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
4552   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4553     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
4554     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
4555     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
4556   [...]
4557 </pre>
4558
4559 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4560 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4561 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4562 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4563
4564 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
4565 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
4566 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
4567
4568       </div>
4569       <div class="tags">
4570
4571
4572         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>.
4573
4574
4575       </div>
4576     </div>
4577     <div class="padding"></div>
4578
4579     <div class="entry">
4580       <div class="title">
4581         <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>
4582       </div>
4583       <div class="date">
4584         10th January 2013
4585       </div>
4586       <div class="body">
4587         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
4588 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
4589 Launcher and updated the Debian package
4590 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
4591 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
4592 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
4593 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
4594 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
4595 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
4596 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
4597 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
4598 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
4599 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
4600 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
4601 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
4602 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
4603 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
4604 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
4605
4606       </div>
4607       <div class="tags">
4608
4609
4610         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4611
4612
4613       </div>
4614     </div>
4615     <div class="padding"></div>
4616
4617     <div class="entry">
4618       <div class="title">
4619         <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>
4620       </div>
4621       <div class="date">
4622          9th January 2013
4623       </div>
4624       <div class="body">
4625         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
4626 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
4627 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
4628 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
4629 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
4630 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
4631 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
4632 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
4633 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
4634 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
4635 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
4636
4637 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
4638 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
4639 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
4640 simple:
4641
4642 <ul>
4643
4644 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
4645   starting when a user log in.</li>
4646
4647 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
4648   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
4649
4650 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
4651   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
4652   packages.</li>
4653
4654 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
4655   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
4656
4657 </ul>
4658
4659 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
4660 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
4661 discover database to find packages and
4662 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
4663 packages.</p>
4664
4665 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
4666 draft package is now checked into
4667 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4668 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
4669 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
4670 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
4671 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
4672 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
4673 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
4674 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
4675 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
4676 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
4677 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
4678 because of the freeze).</p>
4679
4680 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
4681 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
4682 inserted):</p>
4683
4684 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
4685
4686 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
4687 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
4688 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
4689
4690 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
4691 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
4692 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
4693 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
4694 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
4695 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
4696 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
4697
4698 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
4699 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
4700 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
4701 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
4702 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
4703 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
4704 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
4705 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
4706 not be installed?</p>
4707
4708 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
4709 please send me an email. :)</p>
4710
4711       </div>
4712       <div class="tags">
4713
4714
4715         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>.
4716
4717
4718       </div>
4719     </div>
4720     <div class="padding"></div>
4721
4722     <div class="entry">
4723       <div class="title">
4724         <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>
4725       </div>
4726       <div class="date">
4727          2nd January 2013
4728       </div>
4729       <div class="body">
4730         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
4731 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
4732 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
4733 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
4734 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
4735 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
4736 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
4737 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
4738 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
4739 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
4740
4741 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
4742 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
4743 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
4744
4745       </div>
4746       <div class="tags">
4747
4748
4749         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>.
4750
4751
4752       </div>
4753     </div>
4754     <div class="padding"></div>
4755
4756     <div class="entry">
4757       <div class="title">
4758         <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>
4759       </div>
4760       <div class="date">
4761         25th December 2012
4762       </div>
4763       <div class="body">
4764         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
4765 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
4766
4767 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
4768 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
4769 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
4770 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
4771 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
4772 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
4773 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
4774 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
4775 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
4776 name.</p>
4777
4778 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
4779 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
4780 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
4781
4782 <blockquote><pre>
4783 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
4784 cd bitcoin
4785 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
4786 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
4787 </pre></blockquote>
4788
4789 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
4790 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
4791 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
4792 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
4793 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
4794 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
4795 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
4796 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
4797 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
4798
4799 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4800 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4801 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4802
4803       </div>
4804       <div class="tags">
4805
4806
4807         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>.
4808
4809
4810       </div>
4811     </div>
4812     <div class="padding"></div>
4813
4814     <div class="entry">
4815       <div class="title">
4816         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
4817       </div>
4818       <div class="date">
4819         21st December 2012
4820       </div>
4821       <div class="body">
4822         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
4823 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
4824 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
4825 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
4826 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
4827 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
4828 is now maintained by a
4829 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
4830 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
4831 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
4832 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
4833 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
4834 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
4835 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
4836 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
4837 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
4838 Corallo in a
4839 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
4840 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
4841 Debian package.</p>
4842
4843 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
4844 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
4845 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
4846 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
4847 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
4848 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
4849 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
4850 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
4851 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
4852 new version to unstable.
4853
4854 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
4855 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
4856 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
4857 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
4858 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
4859 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
4860 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
4861 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
4862 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
4863 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
4864 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
4865 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
4866 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
4867 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
4868 have not tested them.</p>
4869
4870 <p>My
4871 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
4872 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
4873 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
4874 years ago, as can be
4875 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
4876 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
4877 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
4878 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
4879 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
4880 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
4881 the same address as last time,
4882 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4883
4884       </div>
4885       <div class="tags">
4886
4887
4888         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>.
4889
4890
4891       </div>
4892     </div>
4893     <div class="padding"></div>
4894
4895     <div class="entry">
4896       <div class="title">
4897         <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>
4898       </div>
4899       <div class="date">
4900          7th September 2012
4901       </div>
4902       <div class="body">
4903         <p>As I
4904 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
4905 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
4906 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
4907 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
4908 repository for the project</a>.</p>
4909
4910 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
4911 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
4912 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
4913 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
4914
4915 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
4916 PostScript formats at
4917 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
4918 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
4919
4920       </div>
4921       <div class="tags">
4922
4923
4924         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>.
4925
4926
4927       </div>
4928     </div>
4929     <div class="padding"></div>
4930
4931     <div class="entry">
4932       <div class="title">
4933         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
4934       </div>
4935       <div class="date">
4936         16th August 2012
4937       </div>
4938       <div class="body">
4939         <p>I dag fyller
4940 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
4941 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
4942 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
4943
4944       </div>
4945       <div class="tags">
4946
4947
4948         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>.
4949
4950
4951       </div>
4952     </div>
4953     <div class="padding"></div>
4954
4955     <div class="entry">
4956       <div class="title">
4957         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
4958       </div>
4959       <div class="date">
4960         24th June 2012
4961       </div>
4962       <div class="body">
4963         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
4964 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
4965 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
4966 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
4967 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
4968 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
4969 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
4970 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
4971 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
4972 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
4973 missing in my book.</p>
4974
4975 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
4976 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
4977 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
4978 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
4979 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
4980 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
4981 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
4982
4983       </div>
4984       <div class="tags">
4985
4986
4987         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>.
4988
4989
4990       </div>
4991     </div>
4992     <div class="padding"></div>
4993
4994     <div class="entry">
4995       <div class="title">
4996         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
4997       </div>
4998       <div class="date">
4999         21st November 2011
5000       </div>
5001       <div class="body">
5002         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
5003 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
5004 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
5005 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
5006 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
5007 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
5008 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
5009 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
5010 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
5011 the tools to do so.</p>
5012
5013 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
5014 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
5015 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
5016 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
5017
5018 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
5019 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
5020 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
5021 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
5022 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
5023 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
5024 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
5025 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
5026
5027 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
5028 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
5029 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
5030
5031 <p><pre>
5032 #!/usr/bin/perl
5033 use strict;
5034 use warnings;
5035 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
5036 BEGIN {
5037     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
5038     my %rhelmodules = (
5039         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
5040         );
5041     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
5042         eval "use $module;";
5043         if ($@) {
5044             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
5045             system("yum install -y $pkg");
5046             eval "use $module;";
5047         }
5048     }
5049 }
5050 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
5051
5052 upgrade_dell();
5053
5054 exit 0;
5055
5056 sub run_firmware_script {
5057     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
5058     unless ($script) {
5059         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
5060         exit 1
5061     }
5062     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
5063
5064     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
5065         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
5066     } else {
5067         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
5068     }
5069 }
5070
5071 sub run_firmware_scripts {
5072     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
5073     # Run firmware packages
5074     for my $dir (@dirs) {
5075         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
5076         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
5077         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
5078             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
5079             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
5080         }
5081         closedir $dh;
5082     }
5083 }
5084
5085 sub download {
5086     my $url = shift;
5087     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
5088     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
5089 }
5090
5091 sub upgrade_dell {
5092     my @dirs;
5093     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5094     chomp $product;
5095
5096     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
5097
5098         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
5099         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
5100
5101         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
5102             CLEANUP => 1
5103             );
5104         chdir($tmpdir);
5105         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
5106         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
5107         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
5108         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
5109         my $fwopts = "-q";
5110         if (@paths) {
5111             for my $url (@paths) {
5112                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
5113             }
5114             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
5115         } else {
5116             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5117             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5118         }
5119         chdir('/');
5120     } else {
5121         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5122         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5123     }
5124 }
5125
5126 sub fetch_dell_fw {
5127     my $path = shift;
5128     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
5129     download($url);
5130 }
5131
5132 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
5133 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
5134 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
5135 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
5136     my $filename = shift;
5137
5138     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5139     chomp $product;
5140     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
5141
5142     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
5143
5144     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
5145     my @paths;
5146     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
5147         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
5148         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
5149         my $oscode;
5150         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
5151             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
5152         } else {
5153             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
5154         }
5155         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
5156         {
5157             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
5158         }
5159     }
5160     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
5161         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
5162
5163         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
5164         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
5165
5166         my $cpath = $component->{path};
5167         for my $path (@paths) {
5168             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
5169                 push(@paths, $cpath);
5170             }
5171         }
5172     }
5173     return @paths;
5174 }
5175 </pre>
5176
5177 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
5178 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
5179 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
5180 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
5181 outdated.</p>
5182
5183       </div>
5184       <div class="tags">
5185
5186
5187         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>.
5188
5189
5190       </div>
5191     </div>
5192     <div class="padding"></div>
5193
5194     <div class="entry">
5195       <div class="title">
5196         <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>
5197       </div>
5198       <div class="date">
5199          4th August 2011
5200       </div>
5201       <div class="body">
5202         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
5203 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
5204 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
5205 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
5206 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
5207 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
5208 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
5209 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
5210 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
5211
5212 <p><blockquote>
5213 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
5214 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
5215 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
5216 </blockquote></p>
5217
5218 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
5219 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
5220 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
5221 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
5222 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
5223 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
5224 hard to explain.</p>
5225
5226 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
5227 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
5228 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
5229 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
5230 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
5231 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
5232 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
5233 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
5234 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
5235 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
5236 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
5237 mode).</p>
5238
5239 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
5240 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
5241 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
5242 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
5243 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
5244 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
5245 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
5246 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
5247 after visiting single user mode.</p>
5248
5249 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
5250 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
5251 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
5252 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
5253 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
5254 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
5255 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
5256 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
5257
5258 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
5259 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
5260 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
5261
5262       </div>
5263       <div class="tags">
5264
5265
5266         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>.
5267
5268
5269       </div>
5270     </div>
5271     <div class="padding"></div>
5272
5273     <div class="entry">
5274       <div class="title">
5275         <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>
5276       </div>
5277       <div class="date">
5278         30th July 2011
5279       </div>
5280       <div class="body">
5281         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
5282 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
5283 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
5284 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
5285 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
5286 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
5287 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
5288 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
5289 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
5290 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
5291 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
5292 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
5293 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
5294
5295 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
5296 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
5297 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
5298 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
5299 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
5300 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
5301 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
5302 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
5303 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
5304
5305 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
5306 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
5307 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
5308 is presented.</p>
5309
5310 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
5311 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
5312 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
5313 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
5314 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
5315 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
5316 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
5317 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
5318 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
5319 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
5320 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
5321 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
5322 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
5323 find time to push this forward.</p>
5324
5325       </div>
5326       <div class="tags">
5327
5328
5329         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>.
5330
5331
5332       </div>
5333     </div>
5334     <div class="padding"></div>
5335
5336     <div class="entry">
5337       <div class="title">
5338         <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>
5339       </div>
5340       <div class="date">
5341         29th July 2011
5342       </div>
5343       <div class="body">
5344         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
5345 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
5346 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
5347 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
5348 issues.</p>
5349
5350 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
5351 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
5352 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
5353
5354 <ol>
5355
5356 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
5357 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
5358 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
5359 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
5360 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
5361 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
5362 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
5363 Debian.</li>
5364
5365 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
5366 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
5367 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
5368 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
5369 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
5370 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
5371 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
5372 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
5373 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
5374 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
5375 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
5376 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
5377 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
5378
5379 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
5380 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
5381 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
5382 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
5383 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
5384 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
5385 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
5386 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
5387 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
5388 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
5389
5390 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
5391 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
5392 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
5393 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
5394 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
5395 latter behaviour.</li>
5396
5397 </ol>
5398
5399 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
5400 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
5401 it do not matter much.</p>
5402
5403 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
5404 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
5405 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
5406
5407       </div>
5408       <div class="tags">
5409
5410
5411         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/h264">h264</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>.
5412
5413
5414       </div>
5415     </div>
5416     <div class="padding"></div>
5417
5418     <div class="entry">
5419       <div class="title">
5420         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html">Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</a>
5421       </div>
5422       <div class="date">
5423         26th July 2011
5424       </div>
5425       <div class="body">
5426         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
5427 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
5428 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
5429 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
5430 security support for a few years.</p>
5431
5432 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
5433 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
5434 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
5435 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
5436 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
5437 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
5438 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
5439 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
5440 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
5441 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
5442 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
5443 easier in the future.</p>
5444
5445 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
5446 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
5447 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
5448 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
5449 do not have time for.</p>
5450
5451       </div>
5452       <div class="tags">
5453
5454
5455         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>.
5456
5457
5458       </div>
5459     </div>
5460     <div class="padding"></div>
5461
5462     <div class="entry">
5463       <div class="title">
5464         <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>
5465       </div>
5466       <div class="date">
5467          3rd April 2011
5468       </div>
5469       <div class="body">
5470         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
5471 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
5472 update in English.</p>
5473
5474 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
5475 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
5476 of the British service
5477 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
5478 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
5479 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
5480 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
5481 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
5482 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
5483 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
5484 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
5485 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
5486 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
5487 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
5488 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
5489 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
5490
5491 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
5492 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
5493 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
5494 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
5495 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
5496 public infrastructure.</p>
5497
5498 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
5499 such service?</p>
5500
5501       </div>
5502       <div class="tags">
5503
5504
5505         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>.
5506
5507
5508       </div>
5509     </div>
5510     <div class="padding"></div>
5511
5512     <div class="entry">
5513       <div class="title">
5514         <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>
5515       </div>
5516       <div class="date">
5517         28th January 2011
5518       </div>
5519       <div class="body">
5520         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
5521 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
5522 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
5523 available on the Internet, and check our locally
5524 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
5525 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
5526 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
5527 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
5528 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
5529 out which security holes were present in our free software
5530 collection.</p>
5531
5532 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
5533 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
5534 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
5535 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
5536 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
5537 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
5538 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
5539 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
5540 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
5541 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
5542 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
5543 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
5544 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
5545 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
5546 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
5547 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
5548
5549 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
5550 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
5551 check out, one could look up
5552 <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
5553 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
5554 The most recent one is
5555 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
5556 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
5557 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
5558
5559 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
5560 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
5561 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
5562 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
5563 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
5564 security issues out.</p>
5565
5566 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
5567 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
5568 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
5569 RHEL is providing
5570 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
5571 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
5572 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
5573
5574 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
5575 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
5576 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
5577 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
5578 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
5579 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
5580 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
5581 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
5582 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
5583 established soon.</p>
5584
5585 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
5586 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
5587 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
5588 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
5589 for their packages.</p>
5590
5591       </div>
5592       <div class="tags">
5593
5594
5595         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>.
5596
5597
5598       </div>
5599     </div>
5600     <div class="padding"></div>
5601
5602     <div class="entry">
5603       <div class="title">
5604         <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>
5605       </div>
5606       <div class="date">
5607         23rd January 2011
5608       </div>
5609       <div class="body">
5610         <p>In the
5611 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
5612 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
5613 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
5614 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
5615 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
5616 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
5617 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
5618 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
5619 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
5620 one of my machines like this:</p>
5621
5622 <pre>
5623 loaded modules:
5624 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
5625 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
5626 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
5627 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
5628 10de:03ec pata_amd
5629 10de:03f6 sata_nv
5630 1022:1103 k8temp
5631 109e:036e bttv
5632 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
5633 11ab:4364 sky2
5634 </pre>
5635
5636 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
5637 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
5638
5639 <pre>
5640 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
5641     echo loaded pci modules:
5642     (
5643         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
5644         for address in * ; do
5645             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5646                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5647                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5648                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5649                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
5650                     echo "$id $module"
5651                 fi
5652             fi
5653         done
5654     )
5655     echo
5656 fi
5657 </pre>
5658
5659 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
5660 mappings:</p>
5661
5662 <pre>
5663 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
5664     echo loaded usb modules:
5665     (
5666         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
5667         for address in * ; do
5668             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5669                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5670                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5671                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5672                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
5673                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
5674                         echo "$id $module"
5675                     fi
5676                 fi
5677             fi
5678         done
5679     )
5680     echo
5681 fi
5682 </pre>
5683
5684 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
5685 well.</p>
5686
5687       </div>
5688       <div class="tags">
5689
5690
5691         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>.
5692
5693
5694       </div>
5695     </div>
5696     <div class="padding"></div>
5697
5698     <div class="entry">
5699       <div class="title">
5700         <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>
5701       </div>
5702       <div class="date">
5703         22nd December 2010
5704       </div>
5705       <div class="body">
5706         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
5707 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
5708 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
5709 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
5710 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
5711 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
5712 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
5713 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
5714 university.</p>
5715
5716 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
5717 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
5718 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
5719 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
5720 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
5721 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
5722 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
5723 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
5724
5725 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
5726 I perform on a new model.</p>
5727
5728 <ul>
5729
5730 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
5731 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
5732 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
5733
5734 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
5735 installation, X.org is working.</li>
5736
5737 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
5738 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
5739 reported by the program.</li>
5740
5741 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
5742 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
5743 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
5744 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
5745 normally test this by playing
5746 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
5747 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
5748
5749 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
5750 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5751
5752 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
5753 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5754
5755 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
5756 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
5757
5758 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
5759 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
5760 few.</li>
5761
5762 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
5763 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
5764 notice this.</li>
5765
5766 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
5767 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
5768 resume.</li>
5769
5770 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
5771 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
5772 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
5773 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
5774 not.</li>
5775
5776 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
5777 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
5778 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
5779 existence.</li>
5780
5781 </ul>
5782
5783 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
5784 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
5785 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
5786 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
5787 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
5788 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
5789 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
5790 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
5791
5792       </div>
5793       <div class="tags">
5794
5795
5796         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>.
5797
5798
5799       </div>
5800     </div>
5801     <div class="padding"></div>
5802
5803     <div class="entry">
5804       <div class="title">
5805         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
5806       </div>
5807       <div class="date">
5808         11th December 2010
5809       </div>
5810       <div class="body">
5811         <p>As I continue to explore
5812 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
5813 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
5814 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
5815
5816 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
5817 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
5818 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
5819 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
5820 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
5821 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
5822 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
5823 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
5824 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
5825 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
5826 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
5827 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
5828 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
5829 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
5830 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
5831 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
5832 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
5833 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
5834 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
5835 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
5836
5837 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
5838 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
5839 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
5840 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
5841 If the Skolelinux foundation
5842 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
5843 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
5844 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
5845 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
5846 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
5847 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
5848 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
5849 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
5850
5851 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
5852 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
5853 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
5854 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
5855 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
5856 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
5857 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
5858 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
5859 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
5860 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
5861 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
5862 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
5863 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
5864 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
5865 currencies.</p>
5866
5867 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
5868 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
5869 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
5870 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
5871 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
5872 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
5873 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
5874 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
5875 BitCoins.  Check out
5876 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
5877 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
5878 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
5879 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
5880 yet.</p>
5881
5882 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
5883 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
5884 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
5885 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
5886 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
5887
5888       </div>
5889       <div class="tags">
5890
5891
5892         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>.
5893
5894
5895       </div>
5896     </div>
5897     <div class="padding"></div>
5898
5899     <div class="entry">
5900       <div class="title">
5901         <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>
5902       </div>
5903       <div class="date">
5904         10th December 2010
5905       </div>
5906       <div class="body">
5907         <p>With this weeks lawless
5908 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
5909 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
5910 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
5911 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
5912 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
5913 A blog post from
5914 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
5915 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
5916 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
5917 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
5918 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
5919 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
5920 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
5921
5922 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
5923 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
5924 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
5925 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
5926 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
5927 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
5928 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
5929 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
5930 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
5931 Debian</a> soon.</p>
5932
5933 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
5934 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
5935 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
5936 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
5937 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
5938 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
5939 you can even get
5940 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
5941 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
5942 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
5943 on the current exchange rates.</p>
5944
5945 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
5946 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
5947 donations to the address
5948 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
5949
5950       </div>
5951       <div class="tags">
5952
5953
5954         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>.
5955
5956
5957       </div>
5958     </div>
5959     <div class="padding"></div>
5960
5961     <div class="entry">
5962       <div class="title">
5963         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
5964       </div>
5965       <div class="date">
5966         27th November 2010
5967       </div>
5968       <div class="body">
5969         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
5970 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
5971 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
5972 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
5973 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
5974 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
5975 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
5976 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
5977
5978 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
5979 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5980 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
5981 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
5982 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
5983 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
5984 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
5985 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
5986 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
5987 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
5988 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
5989
5990 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
5991 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
5992 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
5993 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
5994 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
5995 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
5996 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
5997 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
5998 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
5999 what is going on.</p>
6000
6001       </div>
6002       <div class="tags">
6003
6004
6005         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>.
6006
6007
6008       </div>
6009     </div>
6010     <div class="padding"></div>
6011
6012     <div class="entry">
6013       <div class="title">
6014         <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>
6015       </div>
6016       <div class="date">
6017         22nd November 2010
6018       </div>
6019       <div class="body">
6020         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
6021 upgrade testing of the
6022 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6023 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
6024 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
6025 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
6026
6027 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6028
6029 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6030
6031 <blockquote><p>
6032   apache2.2-bin
6033   aptdaemon
6034   baobab
6035   binfmt-support
6036   browser-plugin-gnash
6037   cheese-common
6038   cli-common
6039   cups-pk-helper
6040   dmz-cursor-theme
6041   empathy
6042   empathy-common
6043   freedesktop-sound-theme
6044   freeglut3
6045   gconf-defaults-service
6046   gdm-themes
6047   gedit-plugins
6048   geoclue
6049   geoclue-hostip
6050   geoclue-localnet
6051   geoclue-manual
6052   geoclue-yahoo
6053   gnash
6054   gnash-common
6055   gnome
6056   gnome-backgrounds
6057   gnome-cards-data
6058   gnome-codec-install
6059   gnome-core
6060   gnome-desktop-environment
6061   gnome-disk-utility
6062   gnome-screenshot
6063   gnome-search-tool
6064   gnome-session-canberra
6065   gnome-system-log
6066   gnome-themes-extras
6067   gnome-themes-more
6068   gnome-user-share
6069   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6070   gstreamer0.10-tools
6071   gtk2-engines
6072   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6073   gtk2-engines-smooth
6074   hamster-applet
6075   libapache2-mod-dnssd
6076   libapr1
6077   libaprutil1
6078   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
6079   libaprutil1-ldap
6080   libart2.0-cil
6081   libboost-date-time1.42.0
6082   libboost-python1.42.0
6083   libboost-thread1.42.0
6084   libchamplain-0.4-0
6085   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
6086   libcheese-gtk18
6087   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6088   libcryptui0
6089   libdiscid0
6090   libelf1
6091   libepc-1.0-2
6092   libepc-common
6093   libepc-ui-1.0-2
6094   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6095   libfreerdp0
6096   libgconf2.0-cil
6097   libgdata-common
6098   libgdata7
6099   libgdu-gtk0
6100   libgee2
6101   libgeoclue0
6102   libgexiv2-0
6103   libgif4
6104   libglade2.0-cil
6105   libglib2.0-cil
6106   libgmime2.4-cil
6107   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6108   libgnome2.24-cil
6109   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
6110   libgpod-common
6111   libgpod4
6112   libgtk2.0-cil
6113   libgtkglext1
6114   libgtksourceview2.0-common
6115   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6116   libmono-addins0.2-cil
6117   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
6118   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6119   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
6120   libmono-posix2.0-cil
6121   libmono-security2.0-cil
6122   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6123   libmono-system2.0-cil
6124   libmtp8
6125   libmusicbrainz3-6
6126   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
6127   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
6128   libopal3.6.8
6129   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
6130   libpt2.6.7
6131   libpython2.6
6132   librpm1
6133   librpmio1
6134   libsdl1.2debian
6135   libsrtp0
6136   libssh-4
6137   libtelepathy-farsight0
6138   libtelepathy-glib0
6139   libtidy-0.99-0
6140   media-player-info
6141   mesa-utils
6142   mono-2.0-gac
6143   mono-gac
6144   mono-runtime
6145   nautilus-sendto
6146   nautilus-sendto-empathy
6147   p7zip-full
6148   pkg-config
6149   python-aptdaemon
6150   python-aptdaemon-gtk
6151   python-axiom
6152   python-beautifulsoup
6153   python-bugbuddy
6154   python-clientform
6155   python-coherence
6156   python-configobj
6157   python-crypto
6158   python-cupshelpers
6159   python-elementtree
6160   python-epsilon
6161   python-evolution
6162   python-feedparser
6163   python-gdata
6164   python-gdbm
6165   python-gst0.10
6166   python-gtkglext1
6167   python-gtksourceview2
6168   python-httplib2
6169   python-louie
6170   python-mako
6171   python-markupsafe
6172   python-mechanize
6173   python-nevow
6174   python-notify
6175   python-opengl
6176   python-openssl
6177   python-pam
6178   python-pkg-resources
6179   python-pyasn1
6180   python-pysqlite2
6181   python-rdflib
6182   python-serial
6183   python-tagpy
6184   python-twisted-bin
6185   python-twisted-conch
6186   python-twisted-core
6187   python-twisted-web
6188   python-utidylib
6189   python-webkit
6190   python-xdg
6191   python-zope.interface
6192   remmina
6193   remmina-plugin-data
6194   remmina-plugin-rdp
6195   remmina-plugin-vnc
6196   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6197   rhythmbox-plugins
6198   rpm-common
6199   rpm2cpio
6200   seahorse-plugins
6201   shotwell
6202   software-center
6203   system-config-printer-udev
6204   telepathy-gabble
6205   telepathy-mission-control-5
6206   telepathy-salut
6207   tomboy
6208   totem
6209   totem-coherence
6210   totem-mozilla
6211   totem-plugins
6212   transmission-common
6213   xdg-user-dirs
6214   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
6215   xserver-xephyr
6216 </p></blockquote>
6217
6218 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6219
6220 <blockquote><p>
6221   cheese
6222   ekiga
6223   eog
6224   epiphany-extensions
6225   evolution-exchange
6226   fast-user-switch-applet
6227   file-roller
6228   gcalctool
6229   gconf-editor
6230   gdm
6231   gedit
6232   gedit-common
6233   gnome-games
6234   gnome-games-data
6235   gnome-nettool
6236   gnome-system-tools
6237   gnome-themes
6238   gnuchess
6239   gucharmap
6240   guile-1.8-libs
6241   libavahi-ui0
6242   libdmx1
6243   libgalago3
6244   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6245   libgtksourceview2.0-0
6246   liblircclient0
6247   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
6248   libspeexdsp1
6249   libsvga1
6250   rhythmbox
6251   seahorse
6252   sound-juicer
6253   system-config-printer
6254   totem-common
6255   transmission-gtk
6256   vinagre
6257   vino
6258 </p></blockquote>
6259
6260 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6261
6262 <blockquote><p>
6263   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6264 </p></blockquote>
6265
6266 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6267
6268 <blockquote><p>
6269 [nothing]
6270 </p></blockquote>
6271
6272 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6273
6274 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6275
6276 <blockquote><p>
6277   ksmserver
6278 </p></blockquote>
6279
6280 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6281
6282 <blockquote><p>
6283   kwin
6284   network-manager-kde
6285 </p></blockquote>
6286
6287 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6288
6289 <blockquote><p>
6290   arts
6291   dolphin
6292   freespacenotifier
6293   google-gadgets-gst
6294   google-gadgets-xul
6295   kappfinder
6296   kcalc
6297   kcharselect
6298   kde-core
6299   kde-plasma-desktop
6300   kde-standard
6301   kde-window-manager
6302   kdeartwork
6303   kdeartwork-emoticons
6304   kdeartwork-style
6305   kdeartwork-theme-icon
6306   kdebase
6307   kdebase-apps
6308   kdebase-workspace
6309   kdebase-workspace-bin
6310   kdebase-workspace-data
6311   kdeeject
6312   kdelibs
6313   kdeplasma-addons
6314   kdeutils
6315   kdewallpapers
6316   kdf
6317   kfloppy
6318   kgpg
6319   khelpcenter4
6320   kinfocenter
6321   konq-plugins-l10n
6322   konqueror-nsplugins
6323   kscreensaver
6324   kscreensaver-xsavers
6325   ktimer
6326   kwrite
6327   libgle3
6328   libkde4-ruby1.8
6329   libkonq5
6330   libkonq5-templates
6331   libnetpbm10
6332   libplasma-ruby
6333   libplasma-ruby1.8
6334   libqt4-ruby1.8
6335   marble-data
6336   marble-plugins
6337   netpbm
6338   nuvola-icon-theme
6339   plasma-dataengines-workspace
6340   plasma-desktop
6341   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
6342   plasma-runners-addons
6343   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
6344   plasma-scriptengine-python
6345   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
6346   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
6347   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
6348   plasma-scriptengines
6349   plasma-wallpapers-addons
6350   plasma-widget-folderview
6351   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6352   ruby
6353   sweeper
6354   update-notifier-kde
6355   xscreensaver-data-extra
6356   xscreensaver-gl
6357   xscreensaver-gl-extra
6358   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6359 </p></blockquote>
6360
6361 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6362
6363 <blockquote><p>
6364   ark
6365   google-gadgets-common
6366   google-gadgets-qt
6367   htdig
6368   kate
6369   kdebase-bin
6370   kdebase-data
6371   kdepasswd
6372   kfind
6373   klipper
6374   konq-plugins
6375   konqueror
6376   ksysguard
6377   ksysguardd
6378   libarchive1
6379   libcln6
6380   libeet1
6381   libeina-svn-06
6382   libggadget-1.0-0b
6383   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
6384   libgps19
6385   libkdecorations4
6386   libkephal4
6387   libkonq4
6388   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
6389   libkscreensaver5
6390   libksgrd4
6391   libksignalplotter4
6392   libkunitconversion4
6393   libkwineffects1a
6394   libmarblewidget4
6395   libntrack-qt4-1
6396   libntrack0
6397   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
6398   libplasmaclock4a
6399   libplasmagenericshell4
6400   libprocesscore4a
6401   libprocessui4a
6402   libqalculate5
6403   libqedje0a
6404   libqtruby4shared2
6405   libqzion0a
6406   libruby1.8
6407   libscim8c2a
6408   libsmokekdecore4-3
6409   libsmokekdeui4-3
6410   libsmokekfile3
6411   libsmokekhtml3
6412   libsmokekio3
6413   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
6414   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
6415   libsmokekparts3
6416   libsmokektexteditor3
6417   libsmokekutils3
6418   libsmokenepomuk3
6419   libsmokephonon3
6420   libsmokeplasma3
6421   libsmokeqtcore4-3
6422   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
6423   libsmokeqtgui4-3
6424   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
6425   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
6426   libsmokeqtscript4-3
6427   libsmokeqtsql4-3
6428   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
6429   libsmokeqttest4-3
6430   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
6431   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
6432   libsmokeqtxml4-3
6433   libsmokesolid3
6434   libsmokesoprano3
6435   libtaskmanager4a
6436   libtidy-0.99-0
6437   libweather-ion4a
6438   libxklavier16
6439   libxxf86misc1
6440   okteta
6441   oxygencursors
6442   plasma-dataengines-addons
6443   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
6444   plasma-widget-lancelot
6445   plasma-widgets-addons
6446   plasma-widgets-workspace
6447   polkit-kde-1
6448   ruby1.8
6449   systemsettings
6450   update-notifier-common
6451 </p></blockquote>
6452
6453 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
6454 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
6455 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
6456 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
6457
6458       </div>
6459       <div class="tags">
6460
6461
6462         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>.
6463
6464
6465       </div>
6466     </div>
6467     <div class="padding"></div>
6468
6469     <div class="entry">
6470       <div class="title">
6471         <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>
6472       </div>
6473       <div class="date">
6474         22nd November 2010
6475       </div>
6476       <div class="body">
6477         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
6478 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
6479 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
6480 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
6481 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
6482 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
6483 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
6484 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
6485 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
6486
6487 <p>I found
6488 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
6489 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
6490 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
6491 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
6492 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
6493 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
6494
6495 <pre>
6496 #!/bin/sh
6497
6498 # Based on
6499 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
6500
6501 set -e
6502 set -x
6503
6504 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
6505     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
6506     exit 1
6507 else
6508     host="$1"
6509 fi
6510
6511 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
6512     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
6513     exit 1
6514 fi
6515
6516 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
6517 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6518 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6519 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
6520
6521 img=$host.img
6522 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
6523 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
6524
6525 parted $img mklabel msdos
6526 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
6527 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
6528 parted $img set 1 boot on
6529
6530 modprobe dm-mod
6531 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
6532 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
6533
6534 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
6535 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
6536 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
6537
6538 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
6539 losetup -d /dev/loop0
6540 </pre>
6541
6542 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
6543 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
6544
6545 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
6546 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
6547 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
6548 seem to work just fine.</p>
6549
6550       </div>
6551       <div class="tags">
6552
6553
6554         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>.
6555
6556
6557       </div>
6558     </div>
6559     <div class="padding"></div>
6560
6561     <div class="entry">
6562       <div class="title">
6563         <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>
6564       </div>
6565       <div class="date">
6566         20th November 2010
6567       </div>
6568       <div class="body">
6569         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
6570 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6571 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
6572 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
6573
6574 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
6575 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
6576 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
6577
6578 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6579
6580 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6581
6582 <blockquote><p>
6583   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
6584   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
6585   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
6586   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
6587   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
6588   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
6589   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
6590   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
6591   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
6592   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
6593   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6594   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6595   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
6596   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
6597   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
6598   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
6599   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6600   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
6601   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6602   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
6603   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
6604   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6605   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
6606   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
6607   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
6608   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6609   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6610   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
6611   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6612   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
6613   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
6614   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6615   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
6616   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
6617   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
6618   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
6619   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
6620   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
6621   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
6622   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
6623   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
6624   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
6625   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
6626   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
6627   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
6628   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
6629   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
6630   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
6631   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
6632   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
6633   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
6634   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
6635   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6636   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
6637   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
6638   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
6639   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
6640   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
6641   zip
6642 </p></blockquote>
6643
6644 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
6645
6646 <blockquote><p>
6647   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
6648   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
6649   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
6650   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
6651   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
6652   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
6653   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
6654   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
6655   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
6656   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
6657   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
6658   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6659   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6660   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6661   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6662   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
6663   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6664   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
6665   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
6666   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
6667   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
6668   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
6669   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6670   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
6671   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
6672   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
6673   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
6674   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
6675   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
6676 </p></blockquote>
6677
6678 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6679
6680 <blockquote><p>
6681   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6682 </p></blockquote>
6683
6684 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6685
6686 <blockquote><p>
6687 [nothing]
6688 </p></blockquote>
6689
6690 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6691
6692 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6693
6694 <blockquote><p>
6695   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
6696   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6697   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
6698   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
6699   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
6700   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
6701   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6702   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
6703   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
6704   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6705   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
6706   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
6707   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
6708   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
6709   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
6710   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
6711   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
6712   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
6713   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
6714   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
6715   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
6716   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
6717   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
6718   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
6719   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
6720   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
6721   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
6722   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
6723   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
6724   ttf-sazanami-gothic
6725 </p></blockquote>
6726
6727 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6728
6729 <blockquote><p>
6730   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
6731   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
6732   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
6733   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
6734   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
6735   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
6736   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
6737   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
6738   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
6739   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
6740   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
6741   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
6742   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
6743   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
6744   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6745   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6746   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
6747   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
6748   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6749   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
6750   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6751   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
6752   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6753   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6754   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
6755   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
6756   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
6757   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
6758   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
6759   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
6760   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
6761   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
6762   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
6763 </p></blockquote>
6764
6765 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6766
6767 <blockquote><p>
6768   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
6769   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
6770   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
6771   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
6772   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6773   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
6774   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6775 </p></blockquote>
6776
6777 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6778
6779 <blockquote><p>
6780   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
6781 </p></blockquote>
6782
6783       </div>
6784       <div class="tags">
6785
6786
6787         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>.
6788
6789
6790       </div>
6791     </div>
6792     <div class="padding"></div>
6793
6794     <div class="entry">
6795       <div class="title">
6796         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
6797       </div>
6798       <div class="date">
6799         20th November 2010
6800       </div>
6801       <div class="body">
6802         <p>Answering
6803 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
6804 call from the Gnash project</a> for
6805 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
6806 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
6807 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
6808 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
6809 releases out more often.</p>
6810
6811 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
6812 I have considered setting up a <a
6813 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
6814 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
6815 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
6816 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
6817 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
6818 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
6819 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
6820 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
6821 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
6822 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
6823 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
6824 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
6825
6826       </div>
6827       <div class="tags">
6828
6829
6830         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>.
6831
6832
6833       </div>
6834     </div>
6835     <div class="padding"></div>
6836
6837     <div class="entry">
6838       <div class="title">
6839         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
6840       </div>
6841       <div class="date">
6842          9th November 2010
6843       </div>
6844       <div class="body">
6845         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
6846
6847 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
6848 3D linked in from
6849 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
6850 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
6851
6852       </div>
6853       <div class="tags">
6854
6855
6856         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>.
6857
6858
6859       </div>
6860     </div>
6861     <div class="padding"></div>
6862
6863     <div class="entry">
6864       <div class="title">
6865         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
6866       </div>
6867       <div class="date">
6868         24th October 2010
6869       </div>
6870       <div class="body">
6871         <p>Some updates.</p>
6872
6873 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
6874 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
6875 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
6876 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
6877 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
6878 :)</p>
6879
6880 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
6881 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
6882 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
6883 It is called
6884 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
6885 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
6886 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
6887 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
6888 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
6889 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
6890
6891 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
6892 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
6893 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
6894 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
6895 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
6896 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
6897 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
6898 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
6899 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
6900 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
6901
6902       </div>
6903       <div class="tags">
6904
6905
6906         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>.
6907
6908
6909       </div>
6910     </div>
6911     <div class="padding"></div>
6912
6913     <div class="entry">
6914       <div class="title">
6915         <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>
6916       </div>
6917       <div class="date">
6918          4th September 2010
6919       </div>
6920       <div class="body">
6921         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
6922 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
6923 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
6924 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
6925 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
6926 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
6927 installed.</p>
6928
6929 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
6930 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
6931 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
6932 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
6933 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6934 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
6935 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
6936 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
6937 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
6938
6939 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
6940 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
6941 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
6942 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
6943 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
6944 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
6945 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
6946 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
6947 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
6948 pages they want to visit.</p>
6949
6950 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
6951 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
6952 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
6953 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
6954 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
6955 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
6956 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
6957 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
6958 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
6959 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
6960 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
6961
6962       </div>
6963       <div class="tags">
6964
6965
6966         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>.
6967
6968
6969       </div>
6970     </div>
6971     <div class="padding"></div>
6972
6973     <div class="entry">
6974       <div class="title">
6975         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
6976       </div>
6977       <div class="date">
6978         27th July 2010
6979       </div>
6980       <div class="body">
6981         <p>I discovered this while doing
6982 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
6983 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
6984 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
6985 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
6986 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
6987
6988 <p>An example is from todays
6989 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
6990 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
6991 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
6992 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
6993 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
6994 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
6995 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
6996
6997 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
6998
6999 <blockquote><pre>
7000 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
7001  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
7002   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
7003 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
7004  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
7005 </pre></blockquote>
7006
7007 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
7008 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
7009 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
7010 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
7011 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
7012 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
7013 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
7014 of dependency loops.</p>
7015
7016 <p>Thanks to
7017 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
7018 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
7019 dependencies
7020 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
7021 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
7022
7023 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
7024 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
7025 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
7026 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
7027 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
7028 it.</p>
7029
7030       </div>
7031       <div class="tags">
7032
7033
7034         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>.
7035
7036
7037       </div>
7038     </div>
7039     <div class="padding"></div>
7040
7041     <div class="entry">
7042       <div class="title">
7043         <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>
7044       </div>
7045       <div class="date">
7046         17th July 2010
7047       </div>
7048       <div class="body">
7049         <p>This is a
7050 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
7051 on my
7052 <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
7053 work</a> on
7054 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
7055 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
7056
7057 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
7058 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
7059 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
7060 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
7061
7062 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
7063 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
7064 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
7065
7066 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
7067
7068 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
7069 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
7070 the web.
7071
7072 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
7073 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
7074 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
7075 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
7076 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
7077 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
7078
7079 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
7080 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
7081 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
7082 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
7083 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
7084 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
7085 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
7086 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
7087 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
7088 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
7089 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
7090 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
7091 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
7092 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
7093 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
7094 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
7095
7096 <blockquote><pre>
7097 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7098   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7099   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7100   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7101   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7102   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7103   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7104
7105 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7106   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7107   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
7108   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
7109   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
7110   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
7111 </pre></blockquote>
7112
7113 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
7114 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
7115 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
7116 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7117 also exist.</p>
7118
7119 <blockquote><pre>
7120 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7121 objectclass: top
7122 objectclass: dnsdomain
7123 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7124 dc: tjener
7125 arecord: 10.0.2.2
7126 associateddomain: tjener.intern
7127
7128 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7129 objectclass: top
7130 objectclass: dnsdomain2
7131 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7132 dc: 2
7133 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
7134 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
7135 </pre></blockquote>
7136
7137 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
7138 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
7139 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
7140 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
7141 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
7142 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
7143 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
7144 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
7145 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
7146 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
7147 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
7148 instead.</p>
7149
7150 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
7151 like this:</p>
7152
7153 <blockquote><pre>
7154 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7155   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7156   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7157   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7158   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7159   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7160
7161 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7162   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
7163 </pre></blockquote>
7164
7165 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
7166 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
7167 reverse lookups.</p>
7168
7169 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
7170 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
7171 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
7172 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
7173
7174 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
7175 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
7176 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
7177
7178 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
7179 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
7180 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
7181 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
7182 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
7183
7184 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
7185 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
7186 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
7187 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
7188 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
7189
7190 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
7191 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
7192 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
7193 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
7194 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
7195 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
7196
7197 <blockquote><pre>
7198 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
7199     SUP top
7200     AUXILIARY
7201     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
7202           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
7203           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
7204           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
7205           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
7206     ))
7207 </pre></blockquote>
7208
7209 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
7210 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
7211 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
7212 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
7213 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
7214 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
7215
7216 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
7217
7218 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
7219 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
7220 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
7221 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
7222 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
7223
7224 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
7225 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
7226 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
7227 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
7228
7229 <blockquote><pre>
7230 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
7231 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
7232 </pre></blockquote>
7233
7234 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
7235 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
7236 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
7237 search result is this entry:</p>
7238
7239 <blockquote><pre>
7240 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7241 cn: dhcp
7242 objectClass: top
7243 objectClass: dhcpServer
7244 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7245 </pre></blockquote>
7246
7247 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
7248 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
7249 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
7250 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
7251 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
7252 The search result is this entry:</p>
7253
7254 <blockquote><pre>
7255 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7256 cn: DHCP Config
7257 objectClass: top
7258 objectClass: dhcpService
7259 objectClass: dhcpOptions
7260 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7261 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
7262 dhcpStatements: authoritative
7263 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
7264 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
7265 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
7266 </pre></blockquote>
7267
7268 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
7269 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
7270 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
7271 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
7272 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
7273 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
7274 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
7275 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
7276 related computer objects.</p>
7277
7278 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
7279 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
7280 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
7281 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
7282 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
7283 like:</p>
7284
7285 <blockquote><pre>
7286 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7287 cn: hostname
7288 objectClass: top
7289 objectClass: dhcpHost
7290 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7291 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
7292 </pre></blockquote>
7293
7294 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
7295 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
7296 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
7297 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
7298 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
7299 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
7300 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
7301 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
7302 structural object class.
7303
7304 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
7305
7306 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
7307 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
7308 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
7309 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
7310 in the configuration.</p>
7311
7312 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
7313 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
7314 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
7315 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
7316 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
7317 structure.</p>
7318
7319 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
7320 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
7321
7322 <blockquote><pre>
7323 ou=services
7324   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
7325     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
7326     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7327       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7328         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7329     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7330       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7331         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7332     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
7333       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
7334 </pre></blockquote>
7335
7336 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
7337 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
7338 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
7339 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
7340
7341 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
7342 like this:</p>
7343
7344 <blockquote><pre>
7345 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7346 dc: hostname
7347 objectClass: top
7348 objectClass: dhcpHost
7349 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7350 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
7351 associateddomain: hostname.intern
7352 arecord: 10.11.12.13
7353 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7354 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
7355 </pre></blockquote>
7356
7357 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
7358 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
7359 auxiliary object class.</p>
7360
7361       </div>
7362       <div class="tags">
7363
7364
7365         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>.
7366
7367
7368       </div>
7369     </div>
7370     <div class="padding"></div>
7371
7372     <div class="entry">
7373       <div class="title">
7374         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
7375       </div>
7376       <div class="date">
7377         14th July 2010
7378       </div>
7379       <div class="body">
7380         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
7381 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
7382 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
7383 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
7384 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
7385
7386 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
7387 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
7388
7389 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
7390 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
7391 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
7392 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
7393 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
7394 to a slave DNS server.</p>
7395
7396 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
7397 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
7398 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
7399 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
7400 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
7401 seem to work.</p>
7402
7403 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
7404 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
7405 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
7406 this:</p>
7407
7408 <blockquote><pre>
7409   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7410   cn: hostname
7411   objectClass: dhcphost
7412   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7413   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
7414   associateddomain: hostname.intern
7415   arecord: 10.11.12.13
7416   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7417   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
7418   ldapconfigsound: Y
7419 </pre></blockquote>
7420
7421 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
7422 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
7423 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
7424 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
7425
7426 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
7427 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
7428 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
7429 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
7430 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
7431 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
7432 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
7433 might be a good place to put it.</p>
7434
7435 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7436 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7437
7438       </div>
7439       <div class="tags">
7440
7441
7442         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>.
7443
7444
7445       </div>
7446     </div>
7447     <div class="padding"></div>
7448
7449     <div class="entry">
7450       <div class="title">
7451         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
7452       </div>
7453       <div class="date">
7454         11th July 2010
7455       </div>
7456       <div class="body">
7457         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
7458 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
7459 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
7460 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
7461
7462 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
7463 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
7464 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
7465 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
7466 LTSP clients.</p>
7467
7468 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
7469 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
7470 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
7471
7472 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
7473 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
7474 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
7475
7476 <blockquote><pre>
7477 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
7478 #
7479 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
7480 #
7481 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
7482 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
7483 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
7484 #
7485 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
7486 # existence of attribute names.
7487 #
7488 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
7489 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
7490 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
7491 #
7492 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
7493 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
7494 #
7495 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
7496 #     SUP top
7497 #     AUXILIARY
7498 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
7499
7500 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
7501 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
7502     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
7503     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
7504         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
7505         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
7506             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
7507             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
7508             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
7509             # bass value on to clients
7510             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
7511         done
7512     done
7513 fi
7514 </pre></blockquote>
7515
7516 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
7517 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
7518 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
7519 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
7520 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
7521
7522 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7523 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7524
7525 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
7526 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
7527 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
7528 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
7529 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
7530 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
7531
7532       </div>
7533       <div class="tags">
7534
7535
7536         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>.
7537
7538
7539       </div>
7540     </div>
7541     <div class="padding"></div>
7542
7543     <div class="entry">
7544       <div class="title">
7545         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7546       </div>
7547       <div class="date">
7548          9th July 2010
7549       </div>
7550       <div class="body">
7551         <p>Since
7552 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
7553 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
7554 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
7555 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
7556 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
7557 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
7558 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
7559 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
7560 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
7561 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
7562 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
7563 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
7564 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
7565
7566       </div>
7567       <div class="tags">
7568
7569
7570         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>.
7571
7572
7573       </div>
7574     </div>
7575     <div class="padding"></div>
7576
7577     <div class="entry">
7578       <div class="title">
7579         <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>
7580       </div>
7581       <div class="date">
7582          3rd July 2010
7583       </div>
7584       <div class="body">
7585         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
7586 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
7587 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
7588 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
7589 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
7590 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
7591 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
7592 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
7593
7594 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
7595 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
7596 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
7597 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
7598 publish the difference.</p>
7599
7600 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7601
7602 <blockquote><p>
7603   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7604   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
7605   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
7606   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7607   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
7608   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7609   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
7610   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
7611 </p></blockquote>
7612
7613 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7614
7615 <blockquote><p>
7616   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
7617   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
7618   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
7619   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
7620   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
7621   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
7622   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7623   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
7624   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7625   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7626   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
7627   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
7628   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
7629   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
7630   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
7631   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
7632   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
7633   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
7634   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
7635   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
7636 </p></blockquote>
7637
7638 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7639
7640 <blockquote><p>
7641   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
7642   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
7643   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7644   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7645   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
7646   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
7647   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
7648   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7649   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7650   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7651   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7652   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
7653   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
7654   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
7655   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
7656   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
7657   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
7658   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
7659   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
7660   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
7661   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
7662 </p></blockquote>
7663
7664 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7665
7666 <blockquote><p>
7667   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
7668   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
7669   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
7670 </p></blockquote>
7671
7672 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
7673 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
7674 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
7675 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
7676 the difference somewhat.
7677
7678       </div>
7679       <div class="tags">
7680
7681
7682         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>.
7683
7684
7685       </div>
7686     </div>
7687     <div class="padding"></div>
7688
7689     <div class="entry">
7690       <div class="title">
7691         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7692       </div>
7693       <div class="date">
7694         28th June 2010
7695       </div>
7696       <div class="body">
7697         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
7698 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
7699 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
7700 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
7701 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
7702 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
7703 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
7704 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
7705 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
7706 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
7707
7708 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
7709 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
7710 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
7711 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
7712 released.</p>
7713
7714 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
7715 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
7716 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
7717 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
7718
7719 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
7720 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7721
7722 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
7723 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
7724 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
7725 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
7726 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
7727
7728       </div>
7729       <div class="tags">
7730
7731
7732         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>.
7733
7734
7735       </div>
7736     </div>
7737     <div class="padding"></div>
7738
7739     <div class="entry">
7740       <div class="title">
7741         <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>
7742       </div>
7743       <div class="date">
7744         24th June 2010
7745       </div>
7746       <div class="body">
7747         <p>A while back, I
7748 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
7749 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
7750 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
7751 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
7752
7753 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
7754 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
7755 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
7756 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
7757
7758 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
7759 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
7760 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
7761 Debian Edu.</p>
7762
7763 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
7764 the
7765 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
7766 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
7767 available today from IETF.</p>
7768
7769 <pre>
7770 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
7771 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
7772 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
7773  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
7774         NAME 'dhcpHost'
7775         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
7776 -       SUP top
7777 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
7778         MUST cn
7779         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
7780         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
7781 </pre>
7782
7783 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
7784 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
7785 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
7786
7787 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7788 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7789
7790       </div>
7791       <div class="tags">
7792
7793
7794         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>.
7795
7796
7797       </div>
7798     </div>
7799     <div class="padding"></div>
7800
7801     <div class="entry">
7802       <div class="title">
7803         <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>
7804       </div>
7805       <div class="date">
7806         16th June 2010
7807       </div>
7808       <div class="body">
7809         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
7810 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
7811 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
7812 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
7813 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
7814 this:
7815
7816 <blockquote><pre>
7817 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7818 tasksel --new-install
7819 </pre></blockquote>
7820
7821 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
7822 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
7823 any output what so ever.
7824
7825 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
7826 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
7827 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
7828 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
7829 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
7830 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
7831 code like this:
7832
7833 <blockquote><pre>
7834 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7835 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
7836 $cmd
7837 </pre></blockquote>
7838
7839 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
7840 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
7841 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
7842 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
7843 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
7844 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
7845 installation.</p>
7846
7847 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
7848 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
7849 like this.</p>
7850
7851       </div>
7852       <div class="tags">
7853
7854
7855         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>.
7856
7857
7858       </div>
7859     </div>
7860     <div class="padding"></div>
7861
7862     <div class="entry">
7863       <div class="title">
7864         <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>
7865       </div>
7866       <div class="date">
7867         13th June 2010
7868       </div>
7869       <div class="body">
7870         <p>My
7871 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
7872 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
7873 finally made the upgrade logs available from
7874 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
7875 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
7876 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
7877 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
7878
7879 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
7880 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
7881 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
7882 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
7883 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
7884 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
7885 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
7886 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
7887
7888 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
7889 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
7890 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
7891 too surprising.</p>
7892
7893 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
7894 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
7895 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
7896 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
7897 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
7898 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
7899 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
7900 continue.</p>
7901
7902 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
7903 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
7904   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
7905   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
7906   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
7907   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
7908   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
7909   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7910   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7911   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7912   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7913   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7914   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7915   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7916   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7917   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7918   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7919   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7920   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7921   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7922   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7923   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7924   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7925   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7926   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7927   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7928   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7929   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7930   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
7931   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
7932
7933 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
7934
7935 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
7936   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
7937   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
7938   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
7939   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7940   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
7941   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
7942   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
7943   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
7944   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
7945   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7946   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
7947   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7948   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
7949   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
7950   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
7951   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
7952   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
7953   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
7954   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
7955   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
7956   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
7957   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
7958   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
7959   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7960   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
7961   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
7962   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
7963   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
7964   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7965   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7966   zip</p>
7967
7968 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
7969
7970 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
7971   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
7972   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
7973   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
7974   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
7975   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
7976   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7977   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7978   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7979   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7980   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7981   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7982   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7983   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7984   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7985   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7986   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7987   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7988   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7989   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7990   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7991   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7992   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7993   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7994   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7995   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7996   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7997   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
7998
7999 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
8000 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
8001   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
8002   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
8003   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
8004   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
8005   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
8006   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
8007   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
8008   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
8009   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
8010   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
8011   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
8012   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
8013   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
8014   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
8015   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
8016   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
8017   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
8018   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
8019   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
8020   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
8021   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
8022   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
8023   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
8024   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
8025   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
8026   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
8027   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
8028   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
8029   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
8030   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
8031   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
8032   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
8033   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
8034   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8035   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
8036   xulrunner-1.9</p>
8037
8038
8039       </div>
8040       <div class="tags">
8041
8042
8043         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>.
8044
8045
8046       </div>
8047     </div>
8048     <div class="padding"></div>
8049
8050     <div class="entry">
8051       <div class="title">
8052         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
8053       </div>
8054       <div class="date">
8055         11th June 2010
8056       </div>
8057       <div class="body">
8058         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
8059 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
8060 have been discovered and reported in the process
8061 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
8062 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
8063 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
8064 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
8065 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
8066
8067 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
8068 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
8069 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
8070 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
8071 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
8072 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
8073
8074 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
8075 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
8076 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
8077 is created.  The bug report
8078 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
8079 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
8080 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
8081 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
8082 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
8083 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
8084 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
8085 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
8086 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
8087 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
8088 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
8089 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
8090 Debian Squeeze.</p>
8091
8092 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
8093 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
8094 trick:</p>
8095
8096 <blockquote><pre>
8097 #!/bin/sh
8098 set -ex
8099
8100 if [ "$1" ] ; then
8101     desktop=$1
8102 else
8103     desktop=gnome
8104 fi
8105
8106 from=lenny
8107 to=squeeze
8108
8109 exec &lt; /dev/null
8110 unset LANG
8111 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
8112 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
8113 fuser -mv .
8114 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
8115 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
8116 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
8117 #!/bin/sh
8118 exit 101
8119 EOF
8120 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
8121 exit_cleanup() {
8122     umount $tmpdir/proc
8123 }
8124 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
8125 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
8126 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
8127
8128 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
8129
8130 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
8131 # to return the correct answers.
8132 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
8133     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
8134
8135 # Include the desktop and laptop task
8136 for test in desktop laptop ; do
8137     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
8138 #!/bin/sh
8139 exit 2
8140 EOF
8141     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
8142 done
8143
8144 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8145 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
8146 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
8147 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
8148
8149 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
8150 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
8151 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
8152 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
8153 fuser -mv
8154 </pre></blockquote>
8155
8156 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
8157 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
8158 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
8159 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
8160 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
8161 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
8162
8163 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
8164 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
8165 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
8166 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
8167 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
8168 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
8169 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
8170
8171 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
8172 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
8173 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
8174 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
8175 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
8176 packages.</p>
8177
8178       </div>
8179       <div class="tags">
8180
8181
8182         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>.
8183
8184
8185       </div>
8186     </div>
8187     <div class="padding"></div>
8188
8189     <div class="entry">
8190       <div class="title">
8191         <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>
8192       </div>
8193       <div class="date">
8194          6th June 2010
8195       </div>
8196       <div class="body">
8197         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
8198 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
8199 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
8200 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
8201 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
8202 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
8203 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
8204
8205 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
8206 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
8207 COLUMNS):</p>
8208
8209 <blockquote><pre>
8210 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
8211 previous=N
8212 PREVLEVEL=
8213 RUNLEVEL=
8214 runlevel=S
8215 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
8216 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
8217 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
8218 </pre></blockquote>
8219
8220 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
8221 script.</p>
8222
8223 <blockquote><pre>
8224 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
8225 previous=N
8226 PREVLEVEL=N
8227 RUNLEVEL=S
8228 runlevel=S
8229 </pre></blockquote>
8230
8231 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
8232 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
8233 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
8234
8235 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
8236 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
8237 choice.</p>
8238
8239       </div>
8240       <div class="tags">
8241
8242
8243         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>.
8244
8245
8246       </div>
8247     </div>
8248     <div class="padding"></div>
8249
8250     <div class="entry">
8251       <div class="title">
8252         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
8253       </div>
8254       <div class="date">
8255          6th June 2010
8256       </div>
8257       <div class="body">
8258         <p>Via the
8259 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
8260 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
8261 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
8262 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
8263 following the standards wars of today.</p>
8264
8265       </div>
8266       <div class="tags">
8267
8268
8269         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>.
8270
8271
8272       </div>
8273     </div>
8274     <div class="padding"></div>
8275
8276     <div class="entry">
8277       <div class="title">
8278         <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>
8279       </div>
8280       <div class="date">
8281          3rd June 2010
8282       </div>
8283       <div class="body">
8284         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
8285 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
8286 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
8287 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
8288 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
8289
8290 <blockquote><pre>
8291 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
8292   vendor                    count
8293   Dell Computer Corporation     1
8294     PowerEdge 1750              1
8295   IBM                           1
8296     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
8297   Intel                         2
8298   [no-dmi-info]                 3
8299 maintainer:~#
8300 </pre></blockquote>
8301
8302 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
8303 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
8304 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
8305 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
8306 option to list the individual machines.</p>
8307
8308 <p>A larger list is
8309 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
8310 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
8311 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
8312 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
8313 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
8314 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
8315 collector.</p>
8316
8317       </div>
8318       <div class="tags">
8319
8320
8321         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>.
8322
8323
8324       </div>
8325     </div>
8326     <div class="padding"></div>
8327
8328     <div class="entry">
8329       <div class="title">
8330         <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>
8331       </div>
8332       <div class="date">
8333          1st June 2010
8334       </div>
8335       <div class="body">
8336         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
8337 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
8338 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
8339 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
8340 wait.</p>
8341
8342 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
8343 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
8344 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
8345 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
8346 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
8347 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
8348
8349 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
8350 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
8351 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
8352 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
8353 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
8354 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
8355 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
8356 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
8357
8358 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
8359
8360       </div>
8361       <div class="tags">
8362
8363
8364         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>.
8365
8366
8367       </div>
8368     </div>
8369     <div class="padding"></div>
8370
8371     <div class="entry">
8372       <div class="title">
8373         <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>
8374       </div>
8375       <div class="date">
8376         27th May 2010
8377       </div>
8378       <div class="body">
8379         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
8380 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
8381 issues are known and should be solved:
8382
8383 <p><ul>
8384
8385 <li>The wicd package seen to
8386 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
8387 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
8388 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
8389 seem to be on the case.</li>
8390
8391 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
8392 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
8393 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
8394 maintainer is on the case.</li>
8395
8396 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
8397 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
8398 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
8399 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
8400 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
8401 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
8402 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
8403 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
8404
8405 </ul></p>
8406
8407 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
8408 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
8409 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
8410 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
8411
8412 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8413 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8414 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8415 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8416
8417 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
8418
8419       </div>
8420       <div class="tags">
8421
8422
8423         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>.
8424
8425
8426       </div>
8427     </div>
8428     <div class="padding"></div>
8429
8430     <div class="entry">
8431       <div class="title">
8432         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
8433       </div>
8434       <div class="date">
8435         22nd May 2010
8436       </div>
8437       <div class="body">
8438         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
8439 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
8440 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
8441 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
8442
8443 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
8444 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
8445 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
8446 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
8447 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
8448 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
8449 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
8450 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
8451 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
8452 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
8453 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
8454 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
8455 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
8456 going to work.</p>
8457
8458 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
8459 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
8460 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
8461 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
8462 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
8463 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
8464 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
8465 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
8466 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
8467 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
8468 Edu.</p>
8469
8470 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
8471 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
8472 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
8473 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
8474 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
8475 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
8476
8477 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
8478 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
8479
8480       </div>
8481       <div class="tags">
8482
8483
8484         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>.
8485
8486
8487       </div>
8488     </div>
8489     <div class="padding"></div>
8490
8491     <div class="entry">
8492       <div class="title">
8493         <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>
8494       </div>
8495       <div class="date">
8496         14th May 2010
8497       </div>
8498       <div class="body">
8499         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
8500 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
8501 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
8502 expected, if I am to believe the
8503 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8504 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
8505 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
8506 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
8507 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
8508 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
8509 version.</p>
8510
8511 More information about
8512 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8513 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
8514 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
8515 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8516
8517 <blockquote><pre>
8518 CONCURRENCY=none
8519 </pre></blockquote>
8520
8521 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8522 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8523 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8524 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8525
8526       </div>
8527       <div class="tags">
8528
8529
8530         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>.
8531
8532
8533       </div>
8534     </div>
8535     <div class="padding"></div>
8536
8537     <div class="entry">
8538       <div class="title">
8539         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
8540       </div>
8541       <div class="date">
8542         14th May 2010
8543       </div>
8544       <div class="body">
8545         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
8546 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
8547 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
8548 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
8549 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
8550 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
8551 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
8552 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
8553
8554 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
8555 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
8556 this on the collector host:</p>
8557
8558 <blockquote><pre>
8559 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
8560 </pre></blockquote>
8561
8562 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
8563 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
8564
8565 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
8566 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
8567 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
8568 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
8569 written yet.</p>
8570
8571       </div>
8572       <div class="tags">
8573
8574
8575         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>.
8576
8577
8578       </div>
8579     </div>
8580     <div class="padding"></div>
8581
8582     <div class="entry">
8583       <div class="title">
8584         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
8585       </div>
8586       <div class="date">
8587         13th May 2010
8588       </div>
8589       <div class="body">
8590         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
8591 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
8592 has been
8593 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
8594
8595 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
8596 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
8597 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
8598 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
8599 based boot system.  Tollef is
8600 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
8601 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
8602 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
8603 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
8604 at the moment do not.</p>
8605
8606 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
8607 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
8608 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
8609 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
8610 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
8611 way forward.</p>
8612
8613 <p>In the mean time, based on the
8614 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8615 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
8616 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
8617 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
8618 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
8619 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
8620 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
8621 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
8622
8623       </div>
8624       <div class="tags">
8625
8626
8627         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>.
8628
8629
8630       </div>
8631     </div>
8632     <div class="padding"></div>
8633
8634     <div class="entry">
8635       <div class="title">
8636         <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>
8637       </div>
8638       <div class="date">
8639          6th May 2010
8640       </div>
8641       <div class="body">
8642         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
8643 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
8644 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
8645 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
8646 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8647 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
8648 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8649
8650 <blockquote><pre>
8651 CONCURRENCY=makefile
8652 </pre></blockquote>
8653
8654 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
8655 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
8656 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
8657 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
8658 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
8659 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
8660 make this happen.</p>
8661
8662 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
8663 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
8664 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
8665 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
8666 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
8667
8668 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
8669 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
8670 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
8671 fix the remaining issues.</p>
8672
8673 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8674 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8675 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8676 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8677
8678       </div>
8679       <div class="tags">
8680
8681
8682         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>.
8683
8684
8685       </div>
8686     </div>
8687     <div class="padding"></div>
8688
8689     <div class="entry">
8690       <div class="title">
8691         <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>
8692       </div>
8693       <div class="date">
8694         27th July 2009
8695       </div>
8696       <div class="body">
8697         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
8698 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
8699 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
8700 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
8701 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
8702 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
8703 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
8704
8705 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
8706 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
8707 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
8708
8709       </div>
8710       <div class="tags">
8711
8712
8713         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>.
8714
8715
8716       </div>
8717     </div>
8718     <div class="padding"></div>
8719
8720     <div class="entry">
8721       <div class="title">
8722         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
8723       </div>
8724       <div class="date">
8725         22nd July 2009
8726       </div>
8727       <div class="body">
8728         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
8729 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
8730 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
8731 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
8732 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
8733 the package up to date.</p>
8734
8735 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
8736 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
8737 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
8738 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
8739 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
8740 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
8741 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
8742 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
8743 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
8744 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
8745 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
8746 working on the future release.</p>
8747
8748 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
8749 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
8750
8751       </div>
8752       <div class="tags">
8753
8754
8755         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>.
8756
8757
8758       </div>
8759     </div>
8760     <div class="padding"></div>
8761
8762     <div class="entry">
8763       <div class="title">
8764         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
8765       </div>
8766       <div class="date">
8767         24th June 2009
8768       </div>
8769       <div class="body">
8770         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
8771 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
8772 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
8773 funded
8774 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
8775 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
8776 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
8777 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
8778 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
8779 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
8780
8781 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
8782 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
8783 boot:</p>
8784
8785 <ul>
8786
8787 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
8788
8789 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
8790    clock is in UTC.</li>
8791
8792 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
8793    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8794    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
8795
8796 </ul>
8797
8798 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
8799 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
8800 Villegas</a>.
8801
8802 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
8803 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
8804 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
8805 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
8806 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
8807 using this.</p>
8808
8809 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
8810 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
8811 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
8812 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
8813 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
8814 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
8815 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
8816
8817       </div>
8818       <div class="tags">
8819
8820
8821         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>.
8822
8823
8824       </div>
8825     </div>
8826     <div class="padding"></div>
8827
8828     <div class="entry">
8829       <div class="title">
8830         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
8831       </div>
8832       <div class="date">
8833         17th May 2009
8834       </div>
8835       <div class="body">
8836         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
8837 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
8838 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
8839 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
8840 dager siden kom
8841 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
8842 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
8843 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
8844 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
8845 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
8846
8847 <blockquote>
8848 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
8849 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
8850 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
8851 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
8852 </blockquote>
8853
8854 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
8855 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
8856 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
8857 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
8858 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
8859
8860 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
8861 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
8862 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
8863
8864       </div>
8865       <div class="tags">
8866
8867
8868         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>.
8869
8870
8871       </div>
8872     </div>
8873     <div class="padding"></div>
8874
8875     <div class="entry">
8876       <div class="title">
8877         <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>
8878       </div>
8879       <div class="date">
8880          7th May 2009
8881       </div>
8882       <div class="body">
8883         <p>Kom over
8884 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
8885 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
8886 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
8887 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
8888 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
8889 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
8890 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
8891
8892       </div>
8893       <div class="tags">
8894
8895
8896         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>.
8897
8898
8899       </div>
8900     </div>
8901     <div class="padding"></div>
8902
8903     <div class="entry">
8904       <div class="title">
8905         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
8906       </div>
8907       <div class="date">
8908          2nd May 2009
8909       </div>
8910       <div class="body">
8911         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
8912 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
8913 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
8914 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
8915 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
8916 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
8917 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
8918 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
8919 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
8920 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
8921 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
8922 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
8923 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
8924 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
8925 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
8926 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
8927 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
8928 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
8929 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
8930 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
8931
8932 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
8933 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
8934 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
8935 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
8936 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
8937 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
8938 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
8939 betydelige.</p>
8940
8941       </div>
8942       <div class="tags">
8943
8944
8945         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>.
8946
8947
8948       </div>
8949     </div>
8950     <div class="padding"></div>
8951
8952     <div class="entry">
8953       <div class="title">
8954         <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>
8955       </div>
8956       <div class="date">
8957          2nd May 2009
8958       </div>
8959       <div class="body">
8960         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
8961 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
8962 do not yet know them.</p>
8963
8964 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
8965 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
8966 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
8967 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
8968 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
8969 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
8970 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
8971 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
8972 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
8973 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
8974 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
8975
8976 <p>The second one is
8977 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
8978 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
8979 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
8980 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
8981 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
8982 and the company behind it is running
8983 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
8984 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
8985 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
8986 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
8987 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
8988 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
8989 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
8990 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
8991
8992 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
8993 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
8994 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
8995 surrounded by today.</p>
8996
8997       </div>
8998       <div class="tags">
8999
9000
9001         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>.
9002
9003
9004       </div>
9005     </div>
9006     <div class="padding"></div>
9007
9008     <div class="entry">
9009       <div class="title">
9010         <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>
9011       </div>
9012       <div class="date">
9013         28th April 2009
9014       </div>
9015       <div class="body">
9016         <p>Julien Blache
9017 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
9018 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
9019 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
9020 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
9021 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
9022 properties.</p>
9023
9024       </div>
9025       <div class="tags">
9026
9027
9028         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>.
9029
9030
9031       </div>
9032     </div>
9033     <div class="padding"></div>
9034
9035     <div class="entry">
9036       <div class="title">
9037         <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>
9038       </div>
9039       <div class="date">
9040         30th March 2009
9041       </div>
9042       <div class="body">
9043         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
9044 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
9045 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
9046 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
9047 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
9048 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
9049 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
9050 application.</p>
9051
9052 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
9053 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
9054 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
9055 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
9056 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
9057 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
9058 blocked from doing so.</p>
9059
9060 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
9061 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
9062 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
9063 requirements change.</p>
9064
9065 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
9066 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
9067 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
9068
9069       </div>
9070       <div class="tags">
9071
9072
9073         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>.
9074
9075
9076       </div>
9077     </div>
9078     <div class="padding"></div>
9079
9080     <div class="entry">
9081       <div class="title">
9082         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
9083       </div>
9084       <div class="date">
9085         29th March 2009
9086       </div>
9087       <div class="body">
9088         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
9089 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
9090 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
9091 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
9092 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
9093 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
9094 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
9095 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
9096 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
9097 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
9098 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
9099 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
9100 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
9101 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
9102 now. :)</p>
9103
9104       </div>
9105       <div class="tags">
9106
9107
9108         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>.
9109
9110
9111       </div>
9112     </div>
9113     <div class="padding"></div>
9114
9115     <div class="entry">
9116       <div class="title">
9117         <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>
9118       </div>
9119       <div class="date">
9120         29th March 2009
9121       </div>
9122       <div class="body">
9123         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
9124 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
9125 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
9126 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
9127 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
9128 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
9129
9130 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
9131 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
9132 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
9133 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
9134 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
9135 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
9136 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
9137 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
9138 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
9139 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
9140 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
9141 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
9142 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
9143
9144 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
9145 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
9146 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
9147 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
9148
9149 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
9150 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
9151
9152 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
9153 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
9154 new IETF work group?</p>
9155
9156       </div>
9157       <div class="tags">
9158
9159
9160         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>.
9161
9162
9163       </div>
9164     </div>
9165     <div class="padding"></div>
9166
9167     <div class="entry">
9168       <div class="title">
9169         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
9170       </div>
9171       <div class="date">
9172         15th February 2009
9173       </div>
9174       <div class="body">
9175         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
9176 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
9177 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
9178 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
9179 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
9180 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
9181 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
9182 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
9183 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
9184 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
9185 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
9186 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
9187
9188       </div>
9189       <div class="tags">
9190
9191
9192         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>.
9193
9194
9195       </div>
9196     </div>
9197     <div class="padding"></div>
9198
9199     <div class="entry">
9200       <div class="title">
9201         <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>
9202       </div>
9203       <div class="date">
9204          7th December 2008
9205       </div>
9206       <div class="body">
9207         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
9208 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
9209 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
9210 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
9211 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
9212 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
9213 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
9214 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
9215
9216 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
9217 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
9218 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
9219 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
9220 of these cards.</p>
9221
9222       </div>
9223       <div class="tags">
9224
9225
9226         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>.
9227
9228
9229       </div>
9230     </div>
9231     <div class="padding"></div>
9232
9233     <div class="entry">
9234       <div class="title">
9235         <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>
9236       </div>
9237       <div class="date">
9238         25th November 2008
9239       </div>
9240       <div class="body">
9241         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
9242 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
9243 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
9244 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
9245 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
9246 notes are available on
9247 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
9248 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
9249 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
9250 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
9251 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
9252 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
9253 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
9254 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
9255 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
9256
9257 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
9258 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
9259
9260       </div>
9261       <div class="tags">
9262
9263
9264         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>.
9265
9266
9267       </div>
9268     </div>
9269     <div class="padding"></div>
9270
9271     <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>
9272     <div id="sidebar">
9273
9274
9275
9276 <h2>Archive</h2>
9277 <ul>
9278
9279 <li>2015
9280 <ul>
9281
9282 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9283
9284 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9285
9286 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
9287
9288 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
9289
9290 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9291
9292 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
9293
9294 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
9295
9296 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
9297
9298 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
9299
9300 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
9301
9302 </ul></li>
9303
9304 <li>2014
9305 <ul>
9306
9307 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9308
9309 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
9310
9311 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
9312
9313 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9314
9315 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
9316
9317 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9318
9319 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
9320
9321 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
9322
9323 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9324
9325 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
9326
9327 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9328
9329 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
9330
9331 </ul></li>
9332
9333 <li>2013
9334 <ul>
9335
9336 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
9337
9338 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
9339
9340 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
9341
9342 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
9343
9344 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9345
9346 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
9347
9348 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9349
9350 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9351
9352 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9353
9354 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
9355
9356 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
9357
9358 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9359
9360 </ul></li>
9361
9362 <li>2012
9363 <ul>
9364
9365 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9366
9367 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
9368
9369 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
9370
9371 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
9372
9373 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
9374
9375 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
9376
9377 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
9378
9379 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9380
9381 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
9382
9383 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
9384
9385 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
9386
9387 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9388
9389 </ul></li>
9390
9391 <li>2011
9392 <ul>
9393
9394 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
9395
9396 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9397
9398 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
9399
9400 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9401
9402 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9403
9404 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9405
9406 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9407
9408 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9409
9410 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
9411
9412 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9413
9414 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9415
9416 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
9417
9418 </ul></li>
9419
9420 <li>2010
9421 <ul>
9422
9423 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9424
9425 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
9426
9427 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
9428
9429 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
9430
9431 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9432
9433 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
9434
9435 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
9436
9437 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
9438
9439 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
9440
9441 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
9442
9443 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
9444
9445 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
9446
9447 </ul></li>
9448
9449 <li>2009
9450 <ul>
9451
9452 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
9453
9454 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
9455
9456 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
9457
9458 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
9459
9460 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9461
9462 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
9463
9464 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
9465
9466 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9467
9468 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
9469
9470 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9471
9472 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9473
9474 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9475
9476 </ul></li>
9477
9478 <li>2008
9479 <ul>
9480
9481 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
9482
9483 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9484
9485 </ul></li>
9486
9487 </ul>
9488
9489
9490
9491 <h2>Tags</h2>
9492 <ul>
9493
9494  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
9495
9496  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
9497
9498  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
9499
9500  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
9501
9502  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (9)</a></li>
9503
9504  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (15)</a></li>
9505
9506  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
9507
9508  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
9509
9510  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (112)</a></li>
9511
9512  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (153)</a></li>
9513
9514  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
9515
9516  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
9517
9518  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (20)</a></li>
9519
9520  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
9521
9522  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (293)</a></li>
9523
9524  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
9525
9526  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
9527
9528  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (24)</a></li>
9529
9530  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
9531
9532  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (16)</a></li>
9533
9534  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
9535
9536  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
9537
9538  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (10)</a></li>
9539
9540  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
9541
9542  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
9543
9544  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
9545
9546  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
9547
9548  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
9549
9550  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
9551
9552  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (36)</a></li>
9553
9554  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (268)</a></li>
9555
9556  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (177)</a></li>
9557
9558  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (20)</a></li>
9559
9560  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
9561
9562  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (54)</a></li>
9563
9564  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (88)</a></li>
9565
9566  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
9567
9568  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
9569
9570  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
9571
9572  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
9573
9574  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
9575
9576  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
9577
9578  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
9579
9580  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
9581
9582  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (43)</a></li>
9583
9584  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
9585
9586  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
9587
9588  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (48)</a></li>
9589
9590  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
9591
9592  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (10)</a></li>
9593
9594  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (35)</a></li>
9595
9596  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
9597
9598  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
9599
9600  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
9601
9602  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (54)</a></li>
9603
9604  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
9605
9606  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (37)</a></li>
9607
9608 </ul>
9609
9610
9611     </div>
9612     <p style="text-align: right">
9613  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
9614 </p>
9615
9616   </body>
9617 </html>