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14 <a href=
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</a>
21 <h3>Entries tagged "debian".
</h3>
25 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">Simpler recipe on how to make a simple $
7 IMSI Catcher using Debian
</a>
31 <p>On friday, I came across an interesting article in the Norwegian
32 web based ICT news magazine digi.no on
33 <a href=
"https://www.digi.no/artikler/sikkerhetsforsker-lagde-enkel-imsi-catcher-for-60-kroner-na-kan-mobiler-kartlegges-av-alle/398588">how
34 to collect the IMSI numbers of nearby cell phones
</a> using the cheap
35 DVB-T software defined radios. The article refered to instructions
36 and
<a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjwgNd_as30">a recipe by
37 Keld Norman on Youtube on how to make a simple $
7 IMSI Catcher
</a>, and I decided to test them out.
</p>
39 <p>The instructions said to use Ubuntu, install pip using apt (to
40 bypass apt), use pip to install pybombs (to bypass both apt and pip),
41 and the ask pybombs to fetch and build everything you need from
42 scratch. I wanted to see if I could do the same on the most recent
43 Debian packages, but this did not work because pybombs tried to build
44 stuff that no longer build with the most recent openssl library or
45 some other version skew problem. While trying to get this recipe
46 working, I learned that the apt-
>pip-
>pybombs route was a long detour,
47 and the only piece of software dependency missing in Debian was the
48 gr-gsm package. I also found out that the lead upstream developer of
49 gr-gsm (the name stand for GNU Radio GSM) project already had a set of
50 Debian packages provided in an Ubuntu PPA repository. All I needed to
51 do was to dget the Debian source package and built it.
</p>
53 <p>The IMSI collector is a python script listening for packages on the
54 loopback network device and printing to the terminal some specific GSM
55 packages with IMSI numbers in them. The code is fairly short and easy
56 to understand. The reason this work is because gr-gsm include a tool
57 to read GSM data from a software defined radio like a DVB-T USB stick
58 and other software defined radios, decode them and inject them into a
59 network device on your Linux machine (using the loopback device by
60 default). This proved to work just fine, and I've been testing the
61 collector for a few days now.
</p>
63 <p>The updated and simpler recipe is thus to
</p>
67 <li>start with a Debian machine running Stretch or newer,
</li>
69 <li>build and install the gr-gsm package available from
70 <a href=
"http://ppa.launchpad.net/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gr-gsm/">http://ppa.launchpad.net/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gr-gsm/
</a>,
</li>
72 <li>clone the git repostory from
<a href=
"https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher">https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher
</a>,
</li>
74 <li>run grgsm_livemon and adjust the frequency until the terminal
75 where it was started is filled with a stream of text (meaning you
76 found a GSM station).
</li>
78 <li>go into the IMSI-catcher directory and run 'sudo python simple_IMSI-catcher.py' to extract the IMSI numbers.
</li>
82 <p>To make it even easier in the future to get this sniffer up and
83 running, I decided to package
84 <a href=
"https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/">the gr-gsm project
</a>
85 for Debian (
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/871055">WNPP
86 #
871055</a>), and the package was uploaded into the NEW queue today.
87 Luckily the gnuradio maintainer has promised to help me, as I do not
88 know much about gnuradio stuff yet.
</p>
90 <p>I doubt this "IMSI cacher" is anywhere near as powerfull as
92 <a href=
"https://www.thespyphone.com/portable-imsi-imei-catcher/">The
93 Spy Phone Portable IMSI / IMEI Catcher
</a> or the
94 <a href=
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker">Harris
95 Stingray
</a>, but I hope the existance of cheap alternatives can make
96 more people realise how their whereabouts when carrying a cell phone
97 is easily tracked. Seeing the data flow on the screen, realizing that
98 I live close to a police station and knowing that the police is also
99 wearing cell phones, I wonder how hard it would be for criminals to
100 track the position of the police officers to discover when there are
101 police near by, or for foreign military forces to track the location
102 of the Norwegian military forces, or for anyone to track the location
103 of government officials...
</p>
105 <p>It is worth noting that the data reported by the IMSI-catcher
106 script mentioned above is only a fraction of the data broadcasted on
107 the GSM network. It will only collect one frequency at the time,
108 while a typical phone will be using several frequencies, and not all
109 phones will be using the frequencies tracked by the grgsm_livemod
110 program. Also, there is a lot of radio chatter being ignored by the
111 simple_IMSI-catcher script, which would be collected by extending the
112 parser code. I wonder if gr-gsm can be set up to listen to more than
119 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/surveillance">surveillance
</a>.
124 <div class=
"padding"></div>
128 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_is_now_available.html">Norwegian Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook is now available
</a>
134 <p align=
"center"><img align=
"center" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-07-25-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.png"/></p>
136 <p>I finally received a copy of the Norwegian Bokmål edition of
137 "
<a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
138 Handbook
</a>". This test copy arrived in the mail a few days ago, and
139 I am very happy to hold the result in my hand. We spent around one and a half year translating it. This paperbook edition
140 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian
">is available
141 from lulu.com</a>. If you buy it quickly, you save 25% on the list
142 price. The book is also available for download in electronic form as
143 PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket, as can be
144 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/
">read online
145 as a web page</a>.</p>
147 <p>This is the second book I publish (the first was the book
148 "<a href=
"http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture
</a>" by Lawrence Lessig
150 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-
22440520.html
">English</a>,
151 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-
22645082.html
">French</a>
153 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-
22441576.html
">Norwegian
154 Bokmål</a>), and I am very excited to finally wrap up this
156 "<a href=
"http://www.lulu.com/shop/rapha%C3%ABl-hertzog-and-roland-mas/h%C3%A5ndbok-for-debian-administratoren/paperback/product-23262290.html">Håndbok
157 for Debian-administratoren
</a>" will be well received.</p>
163 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook
">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
168 <div class="padding
"></div>
172 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/N_r_nynorskoversettelsen_svikter_til_eksamen___.html
">Når nynorskoversettelsen svikter til eksamen...</a>
178 <p><a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/norge/Krever-at-elever-ma-fa-annullert-eksamen-etter-rot-med-oppgavetekster-
622459b.html
">Aftenposten
179 melder i dag</a> om feil i eksamensoppgavene for eksamen i politikk og
180 menneskerettigheter, der teksten i bokmåls og nynorskutgaven ikke var
181 like. Oppgaveteksten er gjengitt i artikkelen, og jeg ble nysgjerring
182 på om den fri oversetterløsningen
183 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/
">Apertium</a> ville gjort en bedre
184 jobb enn Utdanningsdirektoratet. Det kan se slik ut.</p>
186 <p>Her er bokmålsoppgaven fra eksamenen:</p>
189 <p>Drøft utfordringene knyttet til nasjonalstatenes og andre aktørers
190 rolle og muligheter til å håndtere internasjonale utfordringer, som
191 for eksempel flykningekrisen.</p>
193 <p>Vedlegge er eksempler på tekster som kan gi relevante perspektiver
196 <li>Flykningeregnskapet 2016, UNHCR og IDMC
197 <li>«Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015
202 <p>Dette oversetter Apertium slik:</p>
205 <p>Drøft utfordringane knytte til nasjonalstatane sine og rolla til
206 andre aktørar og høve til å handtera internasjonale utfordringar, som
207 til dømes *flykningekrisen.</p>
209 <p>Vedleggja er døme på tekster som kan gje relevante perspektiv på
213 <li>*Flykningeregnskapet 2016, *UNHCR og *IDMC</li>
214 <li>«*Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015</li>
219 <p>Ord som ikke ble forstått er markert med stjerne (*), og trenger
220 ekstra språksjekk. Men ingen ord er forsvunnet, slik det var i
221 oppgaven elevene fikk presentert på eksamen. Jeg mistenker dog at
222 "andre aktørers rolle og muligheter til ..." burde vært oversatt til
223 "rolla til andre aktørar og deira høve til ..." eller noe slikt, men
224 det er kanskje flisespikking. Det understreker vel bare at det alltid
225 trengs korrekturlesning etter automatisk oversettelse.
</p>
231 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/stavekontroll">stavekontroll
</a>.
236 <div class=
"padding"></div>
240 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Detecting_NFS_hangs_on_Linux_without_hanging_yourself___.html">Detecting NFS hangs on Linux without hanging yourself...
</a>
246 <p>Over the years, administrating thousand of NFS mounting linux
247 computers at the time, I often needed a way to detect if the machine
248 was experiencing NFS hang. If you try to use
<tt>df
</tt> or look at a
249 file or directory affected by the hang, the process (and possibly the
250 shell) will hang too. So you want to be able to detect this without
251 risking the detection process getting stuck too. It has not been
252 obvious how to do this. When the hang has lasted a while, it is
253 possible to find messages like these in dmesg:
</p>
256 nfs: server nfsserver not responding, still trying
257 <br>nfs: server nfsserver OK
260 <p>It is hard to know if the hang is still going on, and it is hard to
261 be sure looking in dmesg is going to work. If there are lots of other
262 messages in dmesg the lines might have rotated out of site before they
265 <p>While reading through the nfs client implementation in linux kernel
266 code, I came across some statistics that seem to give a way to detect
267 it. The om_timeouts sunrpc value in the kernel will increase every
268 time the above log entry is inserted into dmesg. And after digging a
269 bit further, I discovered that this value show up in
270 /proc/self/mountstats on Linux.
</p>
272 <p>The mountstats content seem to be shared between files using the
273 same file system context, so it is enough to check one of the
274 mountstats files to get the state of the mount point for the machine.
275 I assume this will not show lazy umounted NFS points, nor NFS mount
276 points in a different process context (ie with a different filesystem
277 view), but that does not worry me.
</p>
279 <p>The content for a NFS mount point look similar to this:
</p>
283 device /dev/mapper/Debian-var mounted on /var with fstype ext3
284 device nfsserver:/mnt/nfsserver/home0 mounted on /mnt/nfsserver/home0 with fstype nfs statvers=
1.1
285 opts: rw,vers=
3,rsize=
65536,wsize=
65536,namlen=
255,acregmin=
3,acregmax=
60,acdirmin=
30,acdirmax=
60,soft,nolock,proto=tcp,timeo=
600,retrans=
2,sec=sys,mountaddr=
129.240.3.145,mountvers=
3,mountport=
4048,mountproto=udp,local_lock=all
287 caps: caps=
0x3fe7,wtmult=
4096,dtsize=
8192,bsize=
0,namlen=
255
288 sec: flavor=
1,pseudoflavor=
1
289 events:
61063112 732346265 1028140 35486205 16220064 8162542 761447191 71714012 37189 3891185 45561809 110486139 4850138 420353 15449177 296502 52736725 13523379 0 52182 9016896 1231 0 0 0 0 0
290 bytes:
166253035039 219519120027 0 0 40783504807 185466229638 11677877 45561809
291 RPC iostats version:
1.0 p/v:
100003/
3 (nfs)
292 xprt: tcp
925 1 6810 0 0 111505412 111480497 109 2672418560317 0 248 53869103 22481820
294 NULL:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
295 GETATTR:
61063106 61063108 0 9621383060 6839064400 453650 77291321 78926132
296 SETATTR:
463469 463470 0 92005440 66739536 63787 603235 687943
297 LOOKUP:
17021657 17021657 0 3354097764 4013442928 57216 35125459 35566511
298 ACCESS:
14281703 14290009 5 2318400592 1713803640 1709282 4865144 7130140
299 READLINK:
125 125 0 20472 18620 0 1112 1118
300 READ:
4214236 4214237 0 715608524 41328653212 89884 22622768 22806693
301 WRITE:
8479010 8494376 22 187695798568 1356087148 178264904 51506907 231671771
302 CREATE:
171708 171708 0 38084748 46702272 873 1041833 1050398
303 MKDIR:
3680 3680 0 773980 993920 26 23990 24245
304 SYMLINK:
903 903 0 233428 245488 6 5865 5917
305 MKNOD:
80 80 0 20148 21760 0 299 304
306 REMOVE:
429921 429921 0 79796004 61908192 3313 2710416 2741636
307 RMDIR:
3367 3367 0 645112 484848 22 5782 6002
308 RENAME:
466201 466201 0 130026184 121212260 7075 5935207 5961288
309 LINK:
289155 289155 0 72775556 67083960 2199 2565060 2585579
310 READDIR:
2933237 2933237 0 516506204 13973833412 10385 3190199 3297917
311 READDIRPLUS:
1652839 1652839 0 298640972 6895997744 84735 14307895 14448937
312 FSSTAT:
6144 6144 0 1010516 1032192 51 9654 10022
313 FSINFO:
2 2 0 232 328 0 1 1
314 PATHCONF:
1 1 0 116 140 0 0 0
315 COMMIT:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
317 device binfmt_misc mounted on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc with fstype binfmt_misc
319 </pre></blockquote></p>
321 <p>The key number to look at is the third number in the per-op list.
322 It is the number of NFS timeouts experiences per file system
323 operation. Here
22 write timeouts and
5 access timeouts. If these
324 numbers are increasing, I believe the machine is experiencing NFS
325 hang. Unfortunately the timeout value do not start to increase right
326 away. The NFS operations need to time out first, and this can take a
327 while. The exact timeout value depend on the setup. For example the
328 defaults for TCP and UDP mount points are quite different, and the
329 timeout value is affected by the soft, hard, timeo and retrans NFS
332 <p>The only way I have been able to get working on Debian and RedHat
333 Enterprise Linux for getting the timeout count is to peek in /proc/.
335 <ahref=
"http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4555/netmonitor-12/index.html">Solaris
336 10 System Administration Guide: Network Services
</a>, the 'nfsstat -c'
337 command can be used to get these timeout values. But this do not work
338 on Linux, as far as I can tell. I
339 <ahref=
"http://bugs.debian.org/857043">asked Debian about this
</a>,
340 but have not seen any replies yet.
</p>
342 <p>Is there a better way to figure out if a Linux NFS client is
343 experiencing NFS hangs? Is there a way to detect which processes are
344 affected? Is there a way to get the NFS mount going quickly once the
345 network problem causing the NFS hang has been cleared? I would very
346 much welcome some clues, as we regularly run into NFS hangs.
</p>
352 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/sysadmin">sysadmin
</a>.
357 <div class=
"padding"></div>
361 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_complete__proofreading_in_progress.html">Norwegian Bokmål translation of The Debian Administrator's Handbook complete, proofreading in progress
</a>
367 <p>For almost a year now, we have been working on making a Norwegian
368 Bokmål edition of
<a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian
369 Administrator's Handbook
</a>. Now, thanks to the tireless effort of
370 Ole-Erik, Ingrid and Andreas, the initial translation is complete, and
371 we are working on the proof reading to ensure consistent language and
372 use of correct computer science terms. The plan is to make the book
373 available on paper, as well as in electronic form. For that to
374 happen, the proof reading must be completed and all the figures need
375 to be translated. If you want to help out, get in touch.
</p>
377 <p><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-handbook/debian-handbook-nb-NO.pdf">A
379 fresh PDF edition
</a> in A4 format (the final book will have smaller
380 pages) of the book created every morning is available for
381 proofreading. If you find any errors, please
382 <a href=
"https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">visit
383 Weblate and correct the error
</a>. The
384 <a href=
"http://l.github.io/debian-handbook/stat/nb-NO/index.html">state
385 of the translation including figures
</a> is a useful source for those
386 provide Norwegian bokmål screen shots and figures.
</p>
392 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
397 <div class=
"padding"></div>
401 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html">Unlimited randomness with the ChaosKey?
</a>
407 <p>A few days ago I ordered a small batch of
408 <a href=
"http://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/">the ChaosKey
</a>, a small
409 USB dongle for generating entropy created by Bdale Garbee and Keith
410 Packard. Yesterday it arrived, and I am very happy to report that it
411 work great! According to its designers, to get it to work out of the
412 box, you need the Linux kernel version
4.1 or later. I tested on a
413 Debian Stretch machine (kernel version
4.9), and there it worked just
414 fine, increasing the available entropy very quickly. I wrote a small
415 test oneliner to test. It first print the current entropy level,
416 drain /dev/random, and then print the entropy level for five seconds.
417 Here is the situation without the ChaosKey inserted:
</p>
420 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
421 dd bs=
1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=
1; \
422 for n in $(seq
1 5); do \
423 cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
429 28 byte kopiert,
0,
000264565 s,
106 kB/s
438 <p>The entropy level increases by
3-
4 every second. In such case any
439 application requiring random bits (like a HTTPS enabled web server)
440 will halt and wait for more entrpy. And here is the situation with
441 the ChaosKey inserted:
</p>
444 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
445 dd bs=
1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=
1; \
446 for n in $(seq
1 5); do \
447 cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
453 104 byte kopiert,
0,
000487647 s,
213 kB/s
462 <p>Quite the difference. :) I bought a few more than I need, in case
463 someone want to buy one here in Norway. :)
</p>
465 <p>Update: The dongle was presented at Debconf last year. You might
466 find
<a href=
"https://debconf16.debconf.org/talks/94/">the talk
467 recording illuminating
</a>. It explains exactly what the source of
468 randomness is, if you are unable to spot it from the schema drawing
469 available from the ChaosKey web site linked at the start of this blog
476 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>.
481 <div class=
"padding"></div>
485 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Where_did_that_package_go___mdash__geolocated_IP_traceroute.html">Where did that package go?
— geolocated IP traceroute
</a>
491 <p>Did you ever wonder where the web trafic really flow to reach the
492 web servers, and who own the network equipment it is flowing through?
493 It is possible to get a glimpse of this from using traceroute, but it
494 is hard to find all the details. Many years ago, I wrote a system to
495 map the Norwegian Internet (trying to figure out if our plans for a
496 network game service would get low enough latency, and who we needed
497 to talk to about setting up game servers close to the users. Back
498 then I used traceroute output from many locations (I asked my friends
499 to run a script and send me their traceroute output) to create the
500 graph and the map. The output from traceroute typically look like
504 traceroute to www.stortinget.no (
85.88.67.10),
30 hops max,
60 byte packets
505 1 uio-gw10.uio.no (
129.240.202.1)
0.447 ms
0.486 ms
0.621 ms
506 2 uio-gw8.uio.no (
129.240.24.229)
0.467 ms
0.578 ms
0.675 ms
507 3 oslo-gw1.uninett.no (
128.39.65.17)
0.385 ms
0.373 ms
0.358 ms
508 4 te3-
1-
2.br1.fn3.as2116.net (
193.156.90.3)
1.174 ms
1.172 ms
1.153 ms
509 5 he16-
1-
1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (
195.0.244.234)
2.627 ms he16-
1-
1.cr2.oslosda310.as2116.net (
195.0.244.48)
3.172 ms he16-
1-
1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (
195.0.244.234)
2.857 ms
510 6 ae1.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (
195.0.242.39)
0.662 ms
0.637 ms ae0.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (
195.0.242.23)
0.622 ms
511 7 89.191.10.146 (
89.191.10.146)
0.931 ms
0.917 ms
0.955 ms
517 <p>This show the DNS names and IP addresses of (at least some of the)
518 network equipment involved in getting the data traffic from me to the
519 www.stortinget.no server, and how long it took in milliseconds for a
520 package to reach the equipment and return to me. Three packages are
521 sent, and some times the packages do not follow the same path. This
522 is shown for hop
5, where three different IP addresses replied to the
523 traceroute request.
</p>
525 <p>There are many ways to measure trace routes. Other good traceroute
526 implementations I use are traceroute (using ICMP packages) mtr (can do
527 both ICMP, UDP and TCP) and scapy (python library with ICMP, UDP, TCP
528 traceroute and a lot of other capabilities). All of them are easily
529 available in
<a href=
"https://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a>.
</p>
531 <p>This time around, I wanted to know the geographic location of
532 different route points, to visualize how visiting a web page spread
533 information about the visit to a lot of servers around the globe. The
534 background is that a web site today often will ask the browser to get
535 from many servers the parts (for example HTML, JSON, fonts,
536 JavaScript, CSS, video) required to display the content. This will
537 leak information about the visit to those controlling these servers
538 and anyone able to peek at the data traffic passing by (like your ISP,
539 the ISPs backbone provider, FRA, GCHQ, NSA and others).
</p>
541 <p>Lets pick an example, the Norwegian parliament web site
542 www.stortinget.no. It is read daily by all members of parliament and
543 their staff, as well as political journalists, activits and many other
544 citizens of Norway. A visit to the www.stortinget.no web site will
545 ask your browser to contact
8 other servers: ajax.googleapis.com,
546 insights.hotjar.com, script.hotjar.com, static.hotjar.com,
547 stats.g.doubleclick.net, www.google-analytics.com,
548 www.googletagmanager.com and www.netigate.se. I extracted this by
549 asking
<a href=
"http://phantomjs.org/">PhantomJS
</a> to visit the
550 Stortinget web page and tell me all the URLs PhantomJS downloaded to
551 render the page (in HAR format using
552 <a href=
"https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/examples/netsniff.js">their
553 netsniff example
</a>. I am very grateful to Gorm for showing me how
554 to do this). My goal is to visualize network traces to all IP
555 addresses behind these DNS names, do show where visitors personal
556 information is spread when visiting the page.
</p>
558 <p align=
"center"><a href=
"www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml"><img
559 src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geoip-small.png" alt=
"map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using GeoIP"/></a></p>
561 <p>When I had a look around for options, I could not find any good
562 free software tools to do this, and decided I needed my own traceroute
563 wrapper outputting KML based on locations looked up using GeoIP. KML
564 is easy to work with and easy to generate, and understood by several
565 of the GIS tools I have available. I got good help from by NUUG
566 colleague Anders Einar with this, and the result can be seen in
567 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/kmltraceroute">my
568 kmltraceroute git repository
</a>. Unfortunately, the quality of the
569 free GeoIP databases I could find (and the for-pay databases my
570 friends had access to) is not up to the task. The IP addresses of
571 central Internet infrastructure would typically be placed near the
572 controlling companies main office, and not where the router is really
573 located, as you can see from
<a href=
"www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml">the
574 KML file I created
</a> using the GeoLite City dataset from MaxMind.
576 <p align=
"center"><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg"><img
577 src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy-small.png" alt=
"scapy traceroute graph for URLs used by www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
579 <p>I also had a look at the visual traceroute graph created by
580 <a href=
"http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/">the scrapy project
</a>,
581 showing IP network ownership (aka AS owner) for the IP address in
583 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg">The
584 graph display a lot of useful information about the traceroute in SVG
585 format
</a>, and give a good indication on who control the network
586 equipment involved, but it do not include geolocation. This graph
587 make it possible to see the information is made available at least for
588 UNINETT, Catchcom, Stortinget, Nordunet, Google, Amazon, Telia, Level
589 3 Communications and NetDNA.
</p>
591 <p align=
"center"><a href=
"https://geotraceroute.com/index.php?node=4&host=www.stortinget.no"><img
592 src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-small.png" alt=
"example geotraceroute view for www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
594 <p>In the process, I came across the
595 <a href=
"https://geotraceroute.com/">web service GeoTraceroute
</a> by
596 Salim Gasmi. Its methology of combining guesses based on DNS names,
597 various location databases and finally use latecy times to rule out
598 candidate locations seemed to do a very good job of guessing correct
599 geolocation. But it could only do one trace at the time, did not have
600 a sensor in Norway and did not make the geolocations easily available
601 for postprocessing. So I contacted the developer and asked if he
602 would be willing to share the code (he refused until he had time to
603 clean it up), but he was interested in providing the geolocations in a
604 machine readable format, and willing to set up a sensor in Norway. So
605 since yesterday, it is possible to run traces from Norway in this
606 service thanks to a sensor node set up by
607 <a href=
"https://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG assosiation
</a>, and get the
608 trace in KML format for further processing.
</p>
610 <p align=
"center"><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.kml"><img
611 src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.png" alt=
"map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using geotraceroute"/></a></p>
613 <p>Here we can see a lot of trafic passes Sweden on its way to
614 Denmark, Germany, Holland and Ireland. Plenty of places where the
615 Snowden confirmations verified the traffic is read by various actors
616 without your best interest as their top priority.
</p>
618 <p>Combining KML files is trivial using a text editor, so I could loop
619 over all the hosts behind the urls imported by www.stortinget.no and
620 ask for the KML file from GeoTraceroute, and create a combined KML
621 file with all the traces (unfortunately only one of the IP addresses
622 behind the DNS name is traced this time. To get them all, one would
623 have to request traces using IP number instead of DNS names from
624 GeoTraceroute). That might be the next step in this project.
</p>
626 <p>Armed with these tools, I find it a lot easier to figure out where
627 the IP traffic moves and who control the boxes involved in moving it.
628 And every time the link crosses for example the Swedish border, we can
629 be sure Swedish Signal Intelligence (FRA) is listening, as GCHQ do in
630 Britain and NSA in USA and cables around the globe. (Hm, what should
631 we tell them? :) Keep that in mind if you ever send anything
632 unencrypted over the Internet.
</p>
634 <p>PS: KML files are drawn using
635 <a href=
"http://ivanrublev.me/kml/">the KML viewer from Ivan
636 Rublev
<a/>, as it was less cluttered than the local Linux application
637 Marble. There are heaps of other options too.
</p>
639 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
640 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
641 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
647 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/kart">kart
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget
</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>.
652 <div class=
"padding"></div>
656 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Appstream_just_learned_how_to_map_hardware_to_packages_too_.html">Appstream just learned how to map hardware to packages too!
</a>
662 <p>I received a very nice Christmas present today. As my regular
663 readers probably know, I have been working on the
664 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the Isenkram
665 system
</a> for many years. The goal of the Isenkram system is to make
666 it easier for users to figure out what to install to get a given piece
667 of hardware to work in Debian, and a key part of this system is a way
668 to map hardware to packages. Isenkram have its own mapping database,
669 and also uses data provided by each package using the AppStream
670 metadata format. And today,
671 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/appstream">AppStream
</a> in
672 Debian learned to look up hardware the same way Isenkram is doing it,
673 ie using fnmatch():
</p>
676 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias \
677 usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
678 Identifier: pymissile [generic]
680 Summary: Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
682 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias usb:v0694p0002d0000
683 Identifier: libnxt [generic]
685 Summary: utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick
688 Identifier: t2n [generic]
690 Summary: Simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
693 Identifier: python-nxt [generic]
695 Summary: Python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot
698 Identifier: nbc [generic]
700 Summary: C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
705 <p>A similar query can be done using the combined AppStream and
706 Isenkram databases using the isenkram-lookup tool:
</p>
709 % isenkram-lookup usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
711 % isenkram-lookup usb:v0694p0002d0000
719 <p>You can find modalias values relevant for your machine using
720 <tt>cat $(find /sys/devices/ -name modalias)
</tt>.
722 <p>If you want to make this system a success and help Debian users
723 make the most of the hardware they have, please
724 help
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add
725 AppStream metadata for your package following the guidelines
</a>
726 documented in the wiki. So far only
11 packages provide such
727 information, among the several hundred hardware specific packages in
728 Debian. The Isenkram database on the other hand contain
101 packages,
729 mostly related to USB dongles. Most of the packages with hardware
730 mapping in AppStream are LEGO Mindstorms related, because I have, as
731 part of my involvement in
732 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the Debian LEGO
733 team
</a> given priority to making sure LEGO users get proposed the
734 complete set of packages in Debian for that particular hardware. The
735 team also got a nice Christmas present today. The
736 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nxt-firmware">nxt-firmware
737 package
</a> made it into Debian. With this package in place, it is
738 now possible to use the LEGO Mindstorms NXT unit with only free
739 software, as the nxt-firmware package contain the source and firmware
740 binaries for the NXT brick.
</p>
742 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
743 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
744 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
750 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>.
755 <div class=
"padding"></div>
759 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_updated_with_a_lot_more_hardware_package_mappings.html">Isenkram updated with a lot more hardware-package mappings
</a>
765 <p><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
766 system
</a> I wrote two years ago to make it easier in Debian to find
767 and install packages to get your hardware dongles to work, is still
768 going strong. It is a system to look up the hardware present on or
769 connected to the current system, and map the hardware to Debian
770 packages. It can either be done using the tools in isenkram-cli or
771 using the user space daemon in the isenkram package. The latter will
772 notify you, when inserting new hardware, about what packages to
773 install to get the dongle working. It will even provide a button to
774 click on to ask packagekit to install the packages.
</p>
776 <p>Here is an command line example from my Thinkpad laptop:
</p>
797 <p>It can also list the firware package providing firmware requested
798 by the load kernel modules, which in my case is an empty list because
799 I have all the firmware my machine need:
802 % /usr/sbin/isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
803 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules. exiting
807 <p>The last few days I had a look at several of the around
250
808 packages in Debian with udev rules. These seem like good candidates
809 to install when a given hardware dongle is inserted, and I found
810 several that should be proposed by isenkram. I have not had time to
811 check all of them, but am happy to report that now there are
97
812 packages packages mapped to hardware by Isenkram.
11 of these
813 packages provide hardware mapping using AppStream, while the rest are
814 listed in the modaliases file provided in isenkram.
</p>
816 <p>These are the packages with hardware mappings at the moment. The
817 <strong>marked packages
</strong> are also announcing their hardware
818 support using AppStream, for everyone to use:
</p>
820 <p>air-quality-sensor, alsa-firmware-loaders, argyll,
821 <strong>array-info
</strong>, avarice, avrdude, b43-fwcutter,
822 bit-babbler, bluez, bluez-firmware,
<strong>brltty
</strong>,
823 <strong>broadcom-sta-dkms
</strong>, calibre, cgminer, cheese, colord,
824 <strong>colorhug-client
</strong>, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux,
825 dfu-util, dolphin-emu, ekeyd, ethtool, firmware-ipw2x00, fprintd,
826 fprintd-demo,
<strong>galileo
</strong>, gkrellm-thinkbat, gphoto2,
827 gpsbabel, gpsbabel-gui, gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, gr-fcdproplus,
828 gr-osmosdr, gtkpod, hackrf, hdapsd, hdmi2usb-udev, hpijs-ppds, hplip,
829 ipw3945-source, ipw3945d, kde-config-tablet, kinect-audio-setup,
830 <strong>libnxt
</strong>, libpam-fprintd,
<strong>lomoco
</strong>,
831 madwimax, minidisc-utils, mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mtkbabel,
832 <strong>nbc
</strong>,
<strong>nqc
</strong>, nut-hal-drivers, ola,
833 open-vm-toolbox, open-vm-tools, openambit, pcgminer, pcmciautils,
834 pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, printer-driver-splix,
835 <strong>pymissile
</strong>, python-nxt, qlandkartegt,
836 qlandkartegt-garmin, rosegarden, rt2x00-source, sispmctl,
837 soapysdr-module-hackrf, solaar, squeak-plugins-scratch, sunxi-tools,
838 <strong>t2n
</strong>, thinkfan, thinkfinger-tools, tlp, tp-smapi-dkms,
839 tp-smapi-source, tpb, tucnak, uhd-host, usbmuxd, viking,
840 virtualbox-ose-guest-x11, w1retap, xawtv, xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse,
841 xserver-xorg-input-wacom, xserver-xorg-video-qxl,
842 xserver-xorg-video-vmware, yubikey-personalization and
845 <p>If you know of other packages, please let me know with a wishlist
846 bug report against the isenkram-cli package, and ask the package
848 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add AppStream
849 metadata according to the guidelines
</a> to provide the information
850 for everyone. In time, I hope to get rid of the isenkram specific
851 hardware mapping and depend exclusively on AppStream.
</p>
853 <p>Note, the AppStream metadata for broadcom-sta-dkms is matching too
854 much hardware, and suggest that the package with with any ethernet
855 card. See
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/838735">bug #
838735</a> for
856 the details. I hope the maintainer find time to address it soon. In
857 the mean time I provide an override in isenkram.
</p>
863 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram
</a>.
868 <div class=
"padding"></div>
872 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oolite__a_life_in_space_as_vagabond_and_mercenary___nice_free_software.html">Oolite, a life in space as vagabond and mercenary - nice free software
</a>
878 <p align=
"center"><img width=
"70%" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-12-11-nice-oolite.png"/></p>
880 <p>In my early years, I played
881 <a href=
"http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classic_Elite">the epic game
882 Elite
</a> on my PC. I spent many months trading and fighting in
883 space, and reached the 'elite' fighting status before I moved on. The
884 original Elite game was available on Commodore
64 and the IBM PC
885 edition I played had a
64 KB executable. I am still impressed today
886 that the authors managed to squeeze both a
3D engine and details about
887 more than
2000 planet systems across
7 galaxies into a binary so
890 <p>I have known about
<a href=
"http://www.oolite.org/">the free
891 software game Oolite inspired by Elite
</a> for a while, but did not
892 really have time to test it properly until a few days ago. It was
893 great to discover that my old knowledge about trading routes were
894 still valid. But my fighting and flying abilities were gone, so I had
895 to retrain to be able to dock on a space station. And I am still not
896 able to make much resistance when I am attacked by pirates, so I
897 bougth and mounted the most powerful laser in the rear to be able to
898 put up at least some resistance while fleeing for my life. :)
</p>
900 <p>When playing Elite in the late eighties, I had to discover
901 everything on my own, and I had long lists of prices seen on different
902 planets to be able to decide where to trade what. This time I had the
904 <a href=
"http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page">Elite wiki
</a>,
905 where information about each planet is easily available with common
906 price ranges and suggested trading routes. This improved my ability
907 to earn money and I have been able to earn enough to buy a lot of
908 useful equipent in a few days. I believe I originally played for
909 months before I could get a docking computer, while now I could get it
910 after less then a week.
</p>
912 <p>If you like science fiction and dreamed of a life as a vagabond in
913 space, you should try out Oolite. It is available for Linux, MacOSX
914 and Windows, and is included in Debian and derivatives since
2011.
</p>
916 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
917 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
918 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
924 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/nice free software">nice free software
</a>.
929 <div class=
"padding"></div>
933 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html">Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata
</a>
939 <p>Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian
940 installation system, observing how using
941 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">eatmydata
942 could speed up the installation
</a> quite a bit. My testing measured
943 speedup around
20-
40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around
944 1000 packages from within the installer. The eatmydata package
945 provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing. This is a bit
946 risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will
947 stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a
948 machine crashes at an inconvenient time. But for an installation, if
949 the machine crashes during installation the process is normally
950 restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed
951 up the process make perfect sense.
953 <p>I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable
954 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libeatmydata">eatmydata
</a>,
955 but did not have time to push it any further. But a few months ago I
956 picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer
957 Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation
958 speedup in Debian. Thanks to our cooperation There is now an
959 eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply
960 enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the
961 quicker installations. It can be enabled using preseeding. The
962 following untested kernel argument should do the trick:
</p>
965 preseed/
early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
968 <p>This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i
969 environment early in the installation sequence. Having it installed
970 in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just
971 after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian
972 system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata. This is enough to
973 speed up the installation process. There is a proposal to
974 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/841153">extend the idea a bit further
975 by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf
</a>, but I have not
976 tested its impact.
</p>
983 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>.
988 <div class=
"padding"></div>
992 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oversette_bokm_l_til_nynorsk__enklere_enn_du_tror_takket_v_re_Apertium.html">Oversette bokmål til nynorsk, enklere enn du tror takket være Apertium
</a>
998 <p>I Norge er det mange som trenger å skrive både bokmål og nynorsk.
999 Eksamensoppgaver, offentlige brev og nyheter er eksempler på tekster
1000 der det er krav om skriftspråk. I tillegg til alle skoleoppgavene som
1001 elever over det ganske land skal levere inn hvert år. Det mange ikke
1002 vet er at selv om de kommersielle alternativene
1003 <a href=
"https://translate.google.com/">Google Translate
</a> og
1004 <a href=
"https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing Translator
</a> ikke kan
1005 bidra med å oversette mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finnes det et
1006 utmerket fri programvarealternativ som kan. Oversetterverktøyet
1007 Apertium har støtte for en rekke språkkombinasjoner, og takket være
1008 den utrettelige innsatsen til blant annet Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
1009 en bruke webtjenesten til å fylle inn en tekst på bokmål eller
1010 nynorsk, og få den automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
1011 Resultatet er ikke perfekt, men et svært godt utgangspunkt. Av og til
1012 er resultatet så bra at det kan benyttes uten endringer. Jeg vet
1013 f.eks. at store deler av Joomla ble oversatt til nynorsk ved hjelp
1014 Apertium. Høres det ut som noe du kan ha bruk for? Besøk i så fall
1015 <a href=
"https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium.org
</a> og fyll inn
1016 teksten din i webskjemaet der.
1018 <p>Hvis du trenger maskinell tilgang til den bakenforliggende
1019 teknologien kan du enten installere pakken
1020 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">apertium-nno-nob
</a>
1021 på en Debian-maskin eller bruke web-API-et tilgjengelig fra
1022 api.apertium.org. Se
1023 <a href=
"http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">API-dokumentasjonen
</a>
1024 for detaljer om web-API-et. Her kan du se hvordan resultatet blir for
1025 denne teksten som ble skrevet på bokmål over maskinoversatt til
1030 <p>I Noreg er det mange som treng å skriva både bokmål og nynorsk.
1031 Eksamensoppgåver, offentlege brev og nyhende er døme på tekster der
1032 det er krav om skriftspråk. I tillegg til alle skuleoppgåvene som
1033 elevar over det ganske land skal levera inn kvart år. Det mange ikkje
1034 veit er at sjølv om dei kommersielle alternativa
1035 <a href=
"https://translate.google.com/">Google *Translate
</a> og
1036 <a href=
"https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing *Translator
</a> ikkje
1037 kan bidra med å omsetja mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finst det eit
1038 utmerka fri programvarealternativ som kan. Omsetjarverktøyet
1039 *Apertium har støtte for ei rekkje språkkombinasjonar, og takka vera
1040 den utrøyttelege innsatsen til blant anna Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
1041 ein bruka *webtjenesten til å fylla inn ei tekst på bokmål eller
1042 nynorsk, og få den *automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
1043 Resultatet er ikkje perfekt, men eit svært godt utgangspunkt. Av og
1044 til er resultatet så bra at det kan nyttast utan endringar. Eg veit
1045 t.d. at store delar av *Joomla vart omsett til nynorsk ved hjelp
1046 *Apertium. Høyrast det ut som noko du kan ha bruk for? Besøk i så
1047 fall
<a href=
"https://www.apertium.org/">*Apertium.org
</a> og fyll inn
1048 teksta di i *webskjemaet der.
1050 <p>Viss du treng *maskinell tilgjenge til den *bakenforliggende
1051 teknologien kan du anten installera pakken
1052 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">*apertium-*nno-*nob
</a>
1053 på ein *Debian-maskin eller bruka *web-*API-eit tilgjengeleg frå
1054 *api.*apertium.org. Sjå
1055 <a href=
"http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">*API-dokumentasjonen
</a>
1056 for detaljar om *web-*API-eit. Her kan du sjå korleis resultatet vert
1057 for denne teksta som vart skreva på bokmål over *maskinoversatt til
1064 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/stavekontroll">stavekontroll
</a>.
1069 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1073 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_profiler_for_multi_threaded_software_is_now_in_Debian.html">Coz profiler for multi-threaded software is now in Debian
</a>
1079 <p><a href=
"http://coz-profiler.org/">The Coz profiler
</a>, a nice
1080 profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented
1081 multi-threaded program, finally
1082 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/coz-profiler">made it into
1083 Debian unstable yesterday
</A>. Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many
1085 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">I
1086 blogged about the coz tool
</a> in August working with upstream to make
1087 it suitable for Debian. There are still issues with clang
1088 compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized
1089 JavaScript libraries.
</p>
1091 <p>To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:
</p>
1094 <tt>coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info
</tt>
1097 <p>This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working
1098 directory with the profiling information. This is then given to a
1099 JavaScript application provided in the package and available from
1100 <a href=
"http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">a project web page
</a>.
1101 To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:
</p>
1104 <tt>sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm
</tt>
1107 <p>See the project home page and the
1108 <a href=
"https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">USENIX
1109 ;login: article on Coz
</a> for more information on how it is
1116 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>.
1121 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1125 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html">My own self balancing Lego Segway
</a>
1131 <p>A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT
1132 <a href=
"mindstorms.lego.com">Mindstorms
</a> controller as a birthday
1133 present. It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to
1134 build a Segway like balancing lego robot. I had already built
1135 <a href=
"http://www.nxtprograms.com/NXT2/segway/">a simple balancing
1136 robot
</a> with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the
1137 NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well. It
1138 could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light
1139 condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and
1140 would fall over after a short while. I wanted something more robust,
1142 <a href=
"https://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NGY1044">the
1143 gyro sensor from HiTechnic
</a> I believed would solve it on my
1144 wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my
1147 <p>Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it
1148 since then. But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for
1149 lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for
1151 <a href=
"http://www.hitechnic.com/blog/gyro-sensor/htway/">the
1152 HTWay
</a>, a segway like balancing robot. Build instructions and
1153 <a href=
"https://www.hitechnic.com/upload/786-HTWayC.nxc">source
1154 code
</a> was included, so it was just a question of putting it all
1155 together. And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the
1156 compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in
1157 Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour. The resulting robot
1158 do not look very impressive in its simplicity:
</p>
1160 <p align=
"center"><img width=
"70%" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-robot.jpeg"></p>
1162 <p>Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the
1163 design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task
1164 (taskControl). I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program
1165 working without that sensor present. Now it balances just fine until
1166 the battery status run low:
</p>
1168 <p align=
"center"><video width=
"70%" controls=
"true">
1169 <source src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-balancing.ogv" type=
"video/ogg">
1172 <p>Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote
1173 control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.
</p>
1175 <p>If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools
1176 they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative
1177 distributions like Ubuntu, check out
1178 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the LEGO designers
1179 project page
</a> and join the Debian LEGO team. Personally I own a
1180 RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the
1181 Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they
1188 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>.
1193 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1197 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile phone
</a>
1204 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">I
1205 wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working
</a> without
1206 the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone). It is
1207 time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.
</p>
1209 <p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
1210 it regularly to chat with my loved ones. I had a major snag at the
1211 end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
1212 setup, identity and keys. The reason behind this major mess was
1213 running out of disk space. To avoid that ever happening again I have
1214 started storing everything in
<tt>userdata/
</tt> in git, to be able to
1215 roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake. I
1216 had to use it once after introducing the git backup. When rolling
1217 back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
1218 in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
1219 problem. I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
1220 protocol to detect rollback attacks. The git repository is rather big
1221 (
674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
1222 content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
1225 <p>I've also hit the
90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
1226 make it impossible to send messages using Signal. I could still
1227 receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
1228 I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
1229 upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
1230 protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
1231 thus try to keep the number of support requests down.
</p>
1233 <p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
1234 making the old patch fail to apply cleanly. Below is an updated
1235 patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal. The
1236 original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
1237 and call a function from there. I got help from a friend with more
1238 JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
1239 button instead. This mean that to get started you just need to run
1240 the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
1241 now. I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to
90 days
1242 in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.
</p>
1244 <p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:
</p>
1248 <li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
1249 browser you need. Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
1250 know, so you need to install it.
1253 apt install git tor chromium
1254 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
1257 <li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
1260 <li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
1261 <tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app
</tt>).
1263 <li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
1264 number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
1265 verification code and enter it into the form field and press
1266 'Register'. Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
1267 username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.
</li>
1269 <li>You can now use Signal to contact others. Note, new contacts do
1270 not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
1271 no way to assign names to Contacts. There is also no way to create or
1272 update chat groups. I suspect this is because the web app do not have
1273 a associated contact database.
</li>
1277 <p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
1278 main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
1279 corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
1280 Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon). See for
1282 <a href=
"https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
1283 LibreSignal issue tracker
</a> for a thread documenting the authors
1284 view on these issues. But the network effect is strong in this case,
1285 and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
1286 Signal. Perhaps we can all move to
<a href=
"https://ring.cx/">Ring
</a>
1287 once it
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
1288 laptop
</a>? It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
1289 in
<a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian
</a> and
1290 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu
</a>, but not
1291 working on Debian Stable.
</p>
1293 <p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
1294 working. It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
1295 make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:
</p>
1298 cd Signal-Desktop; cat
<<EOF | patch -p1
1299 diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
1300 index
24b4c1d.
.579345f
100644
1301 --- a/js/background.js
1302 +++ b/js/background.js
1307 - var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
1308 + var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
1309 var SERVER_PORTS = [
80,
4433,
8443];
1310 - var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
1311 + var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
1312 var messageReceiver;
1313 window.getSocketStatus = function() {
1314 if (messageReceiver) {
1315 diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
1316 index
639aeae..beb91c3
100644
1322 - var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
0;
1323 + var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (
90 *
24 *
60 *
60 *
1000);
1325 window.extension = window.extension || {};
1327 diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
1328 index
7816f4f.
.1d6233b
100644
1329 --- a/js/views/install_view.js
1330 +++ b/js/views/install_view.js
1333 'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this,
1),
1334 'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this,
2),
1335 - 'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this,
3)
1336 + 'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this,
3),
1337 + 'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
1340 clearQR: function() {
1341 diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
1342 index dc0f28e.
.8d709f6
100644
1346 <div class='nav'
>
1347 <h1
>{{ installWelcome }}
</h1
>
1348 <p
>{{ installTagline }}
</p
>
1349 -
<div
> <a class='button step2'
>{{ installGetStartedButton }}
</a
> </div
>
1350 +
<div
> <a class='button step2'
>{{ installGetStartedButton }}
</a
>
1351 +
<br
> <a
class="button callreg"
>Register without mobile phone
</a
>
1354 <span class='dot step1 selected'
></span
>
1355 <span class='dot step2'
></span
>
1356 <span class='dot step3'
></span
>
1357 --- /dev/null
2016-
10-
07 09:
55:
13.730181472 +
0200
1358 +++ b/run-signal-app
2016-
10-
10 08:
54:
09.434172391 +
0200
1364 +
userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
1365 +if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
1366 + (cd $userdata && git init)
1368 +(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
1370 +
--proxy-server="socks://localhost:
9050" \
1371 + --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
1373 chmod a+rx run-signal-app
1376 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1377 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1378 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
1384 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>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance
</a>.
1389 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1393 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html">Isenkram, Appstream and udev make life as a LEGO builder easier
</a>
1399 <p><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
1400 system
</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
1401 packages support the hardware in a given machine. The command line
1402 tool
<tt>isenkram-lookup
</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
1403 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
1404 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
1405 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
1406 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
1407 while using the computer. For example, if you plug in a smart card
1408 reader, the system will ask if you want to install
<tt>pcscd
</tt> if
1409 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
1410 camera the system will ask if you want to install
<tt>cheese
</tt> if
1411 cheese is currently missing. This already work just fine.
</p>
1413 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
1414 package names. When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
1415 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
1416 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
1417 http. This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
1418 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.
</p>
1420 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings. The modalias
1421 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
1422 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
1423 globbing. It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
1426 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
1427 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
1428 isenkram propose obsolete packages too. But along came AppStream, a
1429 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
1430 software packages. When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
1431 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
1432 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
1433 mapping hardware to packages. This idea was accepted and AppStream is
1434 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
1435 distribution neutral way. I wrote
1436 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
1437 recipe on how to add such meta-information
</a> in a blog post last
1438 December. If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
1439 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.
</p>
1441 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
1442 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream. The effect is
1443 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
1444 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
1445 it working. The intention is that this should allow the local user to
1446 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
1447 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.
</p>
1449 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
1450 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
1451 annoying. The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
1452 the USB device for programming the unit. This used to work, but no
1453 longer in Jessie and Stretch. After some investigation and asking
1454 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
1455 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices. The
1456 ConsoleKit mechanism from
<tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
70-udev-acl.rules
</tt>
1457 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
1458 plugdev group during login. Michael Biebl told me that this method
1459 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead. This was good
1460 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
1461 directory like LDAP. Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
1462 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
1463 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
1464 setup. Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
1465 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.
</p>
1467 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'. It can either be
1468 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
1469 /lib/udev/rules.d/
70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices. As the
1470 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
1471 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages. Here
1472 is one example. For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
1473 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
60-nqc.rules
</tt> file now look like this:
1476 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="
0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="
0001", \
1477 SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
1480 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end. I suspect all
1481 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
1482 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
1483 <tt>70-uaccess.rules
</tt>). Perhaps a lintian check should be created
1486 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
1487 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
1488 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
1489 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/
70-udev-acl.rules
</tt>. If it is, I guess the
1490 indirect method is the preferred way. Michael
1491 <a href=
"https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
1492 documentation from the systemd project
</a> and I hope it will make
1493 this clearer. For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
1494 is already handled by
<tt>70-uaccess.rules
</tt>, and add the tag
1495 directly if no such class exist.
</p>
1497 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
1498 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
1499 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a>.
</p>
1501 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
1502 please join us on our IRC channel
1503 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego
</a> and join
1504 the
<a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
1505 LEGO team
</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday. A mailing
1506 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)
</p>
1508 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1509 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1510 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
1516 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>.
1521 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1525 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html">First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook now public
</a>
1532 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
1533 to work
</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
1534 how to set up and administrate a Debian system. Today I am happy to
1535 report that the first draft is now publicly available. You can find
1536 it on
<a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
1537 Administrator's Handbook page
</a> (under Other languages). The first
1538 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
1539 proofreading the content. If you want to help out, please start
1541 <a href=
"https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
1542 hosted weblate project page
</a>, and get in touch using
1543 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
1544 translators mailing list
</a>. Please also check out
1545 <a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
1546 contributors
</a>. A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
1547 and update weblate if you find errors.
</p>
1549 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
1550 electronic form.
</p>
1556 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1561 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1565 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software
</a>
1571 <p>This summer, I read a great article
1572 "
<a href=
"https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
1573 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For
</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
1574 how to profile multi-threaded programs. It presented a system for
1575 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
1576 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up
" parts of
1577 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run. It does this by
1578 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up
" code is running
1579 and measure how this affect processing time. The processing time is
1580 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
1581 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END). It
1582 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
1583 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
1585 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
1586 get the system into Debian. I
1587 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=
830708">created
1588 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
1589 system ready for Debian by sending patches. The build process need to
1590 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
1591 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
1592 profiling information included in the source package.
1593 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
1595 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple. To run an coz experiment
1596 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
1598 <p><blockquote><pre>
1599 coz run --- program-to-run
1600 </pre></blockquote></p>
1602 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
1603 information. To show what part of the code affect the performance
1604 most, use a web browser and either point it to
1605 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/
">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
1606 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch). Check out this web
1607 site to have a look at several example profiling runs and get an idea what the end result from the profile runs look like. To make the
1608 profiling more useful you include <coz.h> and insert the
1609 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
1610 code, rebuild and run the profiler. This allow coz to do more
1611 targeted experiments.</p>
1613 <p>A video published by ACM
1614 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg
">presenting the
1615 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube. There is also a paper
1616 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
1618 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger
">Coz:
1619 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
1621 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz
">The source code</a>
1622 for Coz is available from github. It will only build with clang
1624 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=
55606">C++
1625 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
1626 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/
67">a patch to solve
1627 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
1629 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
1630 of software in Debian. I would very much like some help with the
1631 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
1638 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/nice free software
">nice free software</a>.
1643 <div class="padding
"></div>
1647 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html
">Unlocking HTC Desire HD on Linux using unruu and fastboot</a>
1653 <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
1654 to be a slight challenge. Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
1655 again. It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
1656 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy
">an
1657 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
1658 device I had access to. It is a old mobile phone with a broken
1659 microphone The initial idea had been to just
1660 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace
">install
1661 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
1662 until a few days ago.</p>
1664 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
1665 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
1666 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
1667 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
1668 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
1669 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/
">HTC developer web
1670 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
1672 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
1673 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027. This
1674 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
1675 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
1676 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not. So I had to
1677 come up with a different approach. I got a lot of help from AndyCap
1678 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
1681 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
1682 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00
.0029.exe
">the
1683 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
1684 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/
">a github
1685 project named unruu</a> using libunshield. The unshield tool did not
1686 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
1687 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
1688 devices it would work for.</p>
1690 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device. For this I
1691 followed some instructions
1692 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/
2013/
09/new-ruu-zips-posted/
">available
1693 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
1694 machine with Debian testing:</p>
1697 adb reboot-bootloader
1698 fastboot oem rebootRUU
1699 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
1700 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
1704 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
1705 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
1706 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
1707 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
1710 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
1711 instructions on the HTC developer web site. I got the device token
1715 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
1718 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
1722 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
1725 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
1726 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
1727 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
1728 before I start. We will see what happen next. Perhaps I should
1729 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/
">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
1735 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/opphavsrett
">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet
">sikkerhet</a>.
1740 <div class="padding
"></div>
1744 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html
">How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)</a>
1750 <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
1751 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/
">the Signal app</a>, as it is
1752 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
1753 friends and family are already using it. As I by choice do not own a
1754 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected. And I wanted to
1755 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
1756 machine. But yesterday I managed to get it working. I used the
1757 Github source, compared it to the source in
1758 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US
">the
1759 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
1760 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
1761 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form. Here is
1762 the recipe how I did it.
</p>
1764 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
1767 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
1770 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
1771 able to talk to other Signal users:
</p>
1774 cat
<<EOF | patch -p0
1775 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/background.js
1776 --- ./js/background.js
2016-
06-
29 13:
43:
15.630344628 +
0200
1777 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/background.js
2016-
06-
29 14:
06:
29.530300934 +
0200
1782 - var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
1783 - var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
1784 + var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:
4433';
1785 + var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
1786 var messageReceiver;
1787 window.getSocketStatus = function() {
1788 if (messageReceiver) {
1789 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
1790 --- ./js/expire.js
2016-
06-
29 13:
43:
15.630344628 +
0200
1791 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/
0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-
06-
29 14:
06:
29.530300934 +
0200
1795 - var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
0;
1796 + var BUILD_EXPIRATION =
1474492690000;
1798 window.extension = window.extension || {};
1803 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
1804 an expiration timestamp. This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
1805 It is set
90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
1806 The value is seconds since
1970 times
1000, as far as I can tell.
</p>
1808 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
1809 script to launch Signal in Chromium.
</p>
1816 --proxy-server="socks://localhost:
9050" \
1817 --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
1820 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
1821 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
1822 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
1823 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
1824 connections if they use source IP address.
</p>
1826 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
1827 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
1828 repository. I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
1829 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
1830 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
1831 registration form. Then I entered by land line phone number and
1832 pressed 'Call'.
5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
1833 repeated the verification code three times. After entering the number
1834 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
1835 Signal from my laptop.
1837 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
1838 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
1839 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
1840 setup. It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
1841 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
1842 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
1843 So better than many options, but not great. And sadly the usage is
1844 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
1845 to associate it to my home and person. I would prefer it if only
1846 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal. There are options
1847 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
1848 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.
</p>
1850 <p><strong>Update
2017-
01-
10</strong>: There is an updated blog post
1852 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience
1853 and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile
1860 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>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance
</a>.
1865 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1869 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?
</a>
1875 <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
1876 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
1877 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
1878 MIME types
</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
1879 the various players claimed support for. The range was from
55 to
130
1880 MIME types. I suspect most media formats are supported by all
1881 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
1882 their desktop files. There are probably also some bogus MIME types
1883 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.
</p>
1885 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
1886 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
1887 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
1888 favorite media player VLC. The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
1889 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
1890 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
1891 player MIME type support status
</a> Debian wiki page.
</p>
1893 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian? It is VLC, followed by
1894 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
1895 kmplayer. I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
1896 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
1897 toten and parole.
</p>
1899 <p>A sad observation is that only
14 MIME types are listed as
1900 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
1901 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
1902 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
1903 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
1904 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo. Personally I find
1905 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
1906 players in Debian. As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
1913 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>.
1918 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1922 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html">A program should be able to open its own files on Linux
</a>
1928 <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
1929 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
1930 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine. I
1931 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
1932 the day before I would give the talk. The next day I took a plane to
1933 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
1934 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
1935 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file. I cursed a bit and
1936 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
1937 present when I arrived. I tested that the saved files could be
1938 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued. I continued to polish the
1939 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
1940 be loaded into kpresenter. In the end I had to rewrite the slides
1941 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
1942 shorter. After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem
–
1943 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
1944 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
1945 program to make slides. The point I'm trying to make is that we
1946 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
1947 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.
</p>
1949 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
1950 files from the desktop file browser? It is not a uncommon problem. A
1951 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
1952 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
1953 browser would refuse to open. No video player claimed to understand
1954 such file. I tracked down the cause being
<tt>file --mime-type
</tt>
1955 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
1956 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand. I asked for
1957 <a href=
"http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
1958 behavour
</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead. I also asked
1959 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
1960 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files. After a
1961 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
1962 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.
</p>
1964 <p>But history repeats itself. A few days ago I tested the music
1965 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
1966 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
1967 (*.rg). I've reported
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
1968 rosegarden problem to BTS
</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
1969 included in the next upload. To increase the chance of me remembering
1970 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
1971 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.
</p>
1973 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
1974 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file. The output from
1975 <tt>file --mime-type
</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
1976 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/). The file MIME
1977 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
1978 information is collected from
1979 <a href=
"https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
1980 desktop files
</a> available in /usr/share/applications/. If there is
1981 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
1982 activated when asking to open a given file. If there are more, one
1983 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
1984 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar. In general
1985 this work well. But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
1987 <a href=
"http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
1988 MIME type registered with IANA
</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
1989 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
1990 type in its list of supported MIME types.
</p>
1992 <p>The
<tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml
</tt> entry for
1993 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
1994 Shared MIME database
</a> look like this:
</p>
1996 <p><blockquote><pre>
1997 <?xml
version="
1.0"
encoding="UTF-
8"?
>
1998 <mime-info
xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"
>
1999 <mime-type
type="audio/x-rosegarden"
>
2000 <sub-class-of
type="application/x-gzip"/
>
2001 <comment
>Rosegarden project file
</comment
>
2002 <glob
pattern="*.rg"/
>
2005 </pre></blockquote></p>
2007 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
2008 (it is a gzipped XML file). Note, it is much better to use an
2009 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
2010 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.
</p>
2012 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
2013 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
2014 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:
</p>
2016 <p><blockquote><pre>
2017 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
2018 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
2019 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
2021 </pre></blockquote></p>
2023 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
2026 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
2027 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
2028 <tt>file --mime-type
</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
2029 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
2030 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
2031 support for this MIME type. If not, please report a bug to have it
2038 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>.
2043 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2047 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_with_PackageKit_support___new_version_0_23_available_in_Debian_unstable.html">Isenkram with PackageKit support - new version
0.23 available in Debian unstable
</a>
2053 <p><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
2054 system
</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
2055 related packages. The idea is to have a database of mappings between
2056 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
2057 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle. Some use cases
2058 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
2059 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
2060 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
2061 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
2062 install the driver for it. The system work well, and even have a few
2063 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
2064 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).
</p>
2066 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
2067 good documentation and example code on how to use it. But aptdaemon
2068 is going away and is generally being replaced by
2069 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit
</a>,
2070 so Isenkram needed a rewrite. And today, thanks to the great patch
2071 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
2072 rewrite finally took place. I've just uploaded a new version of
2073 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
2074 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit. To check it out,
2075 install the
<tt>isenkram
</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
2076 and see if it is recognised.
</p>
2078 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
2079 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
2080 program. This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:
</p>
2082 <p><blockquote><pre>
2098 </pre></blockquote></p>
2100 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places. The preferred way
2101 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
2102 <a href=
"https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
2103 cross distribution appstream system
</a>.
2105 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
2106 blog posts about isenkram
</a> to learn how to do that.
</p>
2112 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>.
2117 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2121 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html">Discharge rate estimate in new battery statistics collector for Debian
</a>
2127 <p>Yesterday I updated the
2128 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
2129 package in Debian
</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
2130 enterprising users. There were some nice user and visible changes.
2131 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work. A design flaw in
2132 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
2133 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
2134 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
2135 called from the desktop menu. I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
2136 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
2137 graph window pop up as expected.
</p>
2139 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
2140 graphs (the one showing the last few hours). New is also the user of
2141 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red. The percentages
2142 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
2145 <p align=
"center"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
2147 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
2148 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
2149 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time. The red
2150 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers
100 percent:
2152 <p align=
"center"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
2154 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to
80
2155 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
2158 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
2159 more hardware models. On some hardware, Linux power supply
2160 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
2161 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/. Now
2162 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
2165 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
2167 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
</a>
2168 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
2169 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
<a
2170 href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github
</a>.
2171 Patches are very welcome.
</p>
2173 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2174 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2175 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
2181 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>.
2186 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2190 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included
</a>
2196 <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
2197 <a href=
"http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux
</a> finally entered
2198 Debian. The package status can be seen on
2199 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
2200 for zfs-linux
</a>. and
2201 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2202 team status page
</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
2203 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
2204 source code
</a> is available via git on Alioth. It would also be
2205 great if you could help out with
2206 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package
</a>, as
2207 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.
</p>
2213 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>.
2218 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2222 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">What is the best multimedia player in Debian?
</a>
2228 <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
2229 Debian claim support for most file formats.
</strong></p>
2231 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
2232 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
2233 Edu. I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
2234 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
2235 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
2236 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
2237 result
</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
2238 not been updated for a while. But browser plugins are less relevant
2239 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
2242 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
2243 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
2244 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why. The cause is a
2245 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
2246 desktop file
</a>. In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
2247 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
2248 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
2249 two for VLC. This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
2250 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
2251 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
2252 support most file formats.
</p>
2254 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
2255 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
2256 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
2257 in the table
</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
2258 listed first in the table.
</p>
2260 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian? It is totem, followed by
2261 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
2262 kmplayer. Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
2269 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>.
2274 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2278 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled
</a>
2284 A friend of mine made me aware of
2285 <a href=
"https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra
</a>, a
2286 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled. I
2287 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)
</p>
2289 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
2290 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a
5"
2291 LCD touch screen. The
6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
2292 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
2293 confirming this. The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
2294 last I heard last night was that
22 more orders were needed before
2295 production started.
</p>
2297 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
2298 Debian. Please let me know if you know of any others. Is it the
2299 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?
</p>
2305 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>.
2310 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2314 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Lets make a Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook
</a>
2320 <p>During this weekends
2321 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
2322 squashing party and developer gathering
</a>, we decided to do our part
2323 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
2324 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
2325 <a href=
"http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
2326 project
</a> to get started. If you want to help out, please start
2328 <a href=
"https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
2329 hosted weblate project page
</a>, and get in touch using
2330 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
2331 translators mailing list
</a>. Please also check out
2332 <a href=
"https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
2333 contributors
</a>.
</p>
2335 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
2336 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
2337 Bokmål too. In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
2338 Mobi versions available. And there are incomplete translations
2339 available for many more languages.
</p>
2345 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2350 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2354 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_in_two_hundred_Debian_users_using_ZFS_on_Linux_.html">One in two hundred Debian users using ZFS on Linux?
</a>
2360 <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
2361 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found. I use
2362 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
2363 But I might be wrong.
</p>
2366 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
2367 results for spl-linux
</a>, there are
1019 Debian installations, or
2368 0.53% of the population, with the package installed. As far as I know
2369 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
2370 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
2371 installation on Linux in Debian. In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
2372 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
2373 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
2374 results for zfsutils
</a> show
1625 Debian installations or
0.84% of
2375 the population. So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.
</p>
2377 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
2378 <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
2379 in April
2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
2380 cleared, the package is still not in Debian. The package is again in
2381 the NEW queue. Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
2382 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
2383 to give up. The current status can be seen on
2384 <a href=
"https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2385 team status page
</a>, and
2386 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
2387 source code
</a> is available on Alioth.
</p>
2389 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
2390 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
2391 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
2392 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
2393 to help out the team. This was the background for my blog post about
2394 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
2395 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically
</a>, and I
2396 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
2397 copyright file. It is not very easy to check every one of the around
2398 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
2399 right. If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
2400 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.
</p>
2406 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 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2415 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Full_battery_stats_collector_is_now_available_in_Debian.html">Full battery stats collector is now available in Debian
</a>
2421 <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
2422 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
2423 later processing and graphing. The original collector store the
2424 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
2425 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
2426 full level, last full level and current battery level. This make it
2427 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
2428 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.
</p>
2430 <p>The new tools are available in
<tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/
</tt>
2431 in the version
0.5.1 package in unstable. Get the new battery level graph
2432 and lifetime prediction by running:
2435 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
2438 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.
</p>
2440 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
2444 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
2447 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
2448 when there are few data points. The graphs look a bit better with a
2449 few years of data.
</p>
2451 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
2452 collector broke in Debian. The scripts in
2453 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/
</tt> were no longer executed. I
2454 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
2455 know. The issue is reported as
2456 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #
818649</a> against
2457 pm-utils. I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
2458 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
2459 disconnected. With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
2460 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.
</p>
2462 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
2464 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
</a>
2465 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
2466 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
2467 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github
</a>.
2468 As always, patches are very welcome.
</p>
2474 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>.
2479 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2483 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html">Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian
</a>
2489 <p>Back in September, I blogged about
2490 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
2491 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery
</a>, and
2492 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced). I
2493 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
2494 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
2495 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
2496 package in Debian
</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
2497 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
2498 fixed instead. I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
2499 hoped someone would step in and fix it. But no-one did.
</p>
2501 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
2502 hands. The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
2503 battery stats (
<a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github
</a>) and part of the team maintaining
2504 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
2505 able to collect battery status using the
<tt>/sys/class/power_supply/
</tt>
2506 information provided by the Linux kernel. If you install the
2507 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
2508 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
2509 status of the battery. The source package build and work just fine in
2510 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
2511 tested). The default graph you get for that system look like this:
</p>
2513 <p align=
"center"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-15-battery-stats-graph-example.png" width=
"70%" align=
"center"></p>
2515 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
2516 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
2517 about the battery. The scripts are merged into the upstream
2518 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
2519 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way. Will have to test a
2520 bit more before I make a new release.
</p>
2522 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
2523 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
2524 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
2527 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
2528 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
2529 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian
</a> and
2531 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github
</a>.
2532 I would love some help to improve the system further.
</p>
2538 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>.
2543 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2547 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically
</a>
2553 <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
2554 details. And one of the details is the content of the
2555 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
2556 the code in the package in question, preferably in
2557 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
2558 readable DEP5 format
</a>.
</p>
2560 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
2561 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
2562 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters. So getting it right
2563 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
2564 both you and the ftpmasters some work.. Today, while trying to figure
2565 out what was wrong with
2566 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
2567 zfsonlinux copyright file
</a>, I decided to spend some time on
2568 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
2569 semi-automatically.
</p>
2571 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
2572 file based on the code in the source package,
2573 <tt><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake
</a></tt>
2574 and
<tt><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme
</a></tt>. I'm
2575 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
2576 create a sensible draft file. As far as I can tell, none of them can
2577 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
2578 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload. I found the debmake
2580 <a href=
"http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
2581 blog posts from
2014</a>.
2583 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
2586 debmake -cc
> debian/copyright
2589 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
2590 this might not be the best option.
</p>
2592 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
2594 <a href=
"https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
2595 blog post from
2015</a>. To generate using cme, use the 'update
2596 dpkg-copyright' option:
2599 cme update dpkg-copyright
2602 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright. The cme tool seem to
2603 handle UTF-
8 names better than debmake.
</p>
2605 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
2606 check if the file is correct. For this I found two good options,
2607 <tt>debmake -k
</tt> and
<tt>license-reconcile
</tt>. The former seem
2608 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
2609 ineffective blocks in the copyright file. The latter reports missing
2610 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
2611 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-
1.0). I suspect it is good to use both and
2612 fix all issues reported by them before uploading. But I do not know
2613 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
2614 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.
</p>
2616 <p>The devscripts tool
<tt>licensecheck
</tt> deserve mentioning. It
2617 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
2618 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
2619 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.
</p>
2621 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
2622 debian/copyright file. Please let me know, or blog about it on
2623 planet.debian.org.
</p>
2625 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2626 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2627 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
2629 <p><strong>Update
2016-
02-
20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
2630 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
2633 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
2634 /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5
> debian/copyright.auto
2637 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
2638 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
2639 copyright changes in the upstream source. I will try to do the same
2640 with my packages in the future.
</p>
2642 <p><strong>Update
2016-
02-
21</strong>: The cme author recommended
2643 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
2650 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>.
2655 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2659 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html">Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support
</a>
2665 <p>The
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system
</a>
2666 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
2667 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
2668 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it. This can
2669 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
2672 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
2673 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-
3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
2674 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
2675 unstable. In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
2676 by the kernel during kernel module loading. To find the package
2677 providing the example file, do like this:
</p>
2680 % apt install appstream
2684 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-
3.2.3.0.bin | \
2685 awk '/Package:/ {print $
2}'
2690 <p>See
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
2691 appstream wiki
</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
2692 a way appstream can use.
</p>
2694 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
2695 given MIME type. This is very useful when you get a file you do not
2696 know how to handle. First find the mime type using
<tt>file
2697 --mime-type
</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
2698 it. Lets say you got an SVG file. Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
2699 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:
</p>
2702 % apt install appstream
2706 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
2707 awk '/Package:/ {print $
2}'
2731 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
2732 packages providing appstream metadata.
</p>
2738 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>.
2743 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2747 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html">Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software
</a>
2753 <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
2754 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
2755 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
2756 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent). And if their
2757 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
2758 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
2759 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
2760 during installation). And when these programs send out information to
2761 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
2762 extra care is taken to not send the location. The provided
2763 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
2764 good and bad, depend on your point of view). What is certain, is that
2765 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
2766 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
2767 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
2770 <p align=
"center"><img width=
"70%" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
2772 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
2773 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing. It is
2774 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
2775 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
2776 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information. But the
2777 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
2778 tool to do so is called
2779 <a href=
"http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py
</a>. I
2780 discovered it when I read
2781 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
2782 article about Creepy
</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
2783 November
2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
2784 The python program was in Debian, but
2785 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
2786 Debian
</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained. I
2787 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
2788 have time to fix it then. This Christmas I decided to finally try to
2789 get Creepy operational in Debian. Now a fixed version is available in
2790 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
2792 <a href=
"https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream
</a>.
</p>
2794 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
2795 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
2796 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
2797 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
2798 these services. Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
2799 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
2800 days it is impossible. This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
2801 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
2802 information to them about your search interests. This should be taken
2803 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
2804 about yourself with the services.
</p>
2806 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
2807 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
2808 of Norway. One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
2809 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
2810 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
2811 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
2812 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
2813 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
2814 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
2815 things. A similar technique have been
2816 <a href=
"http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
2817 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine
</a>, and it is both a powerful
2818 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
2819 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
2822 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
2823 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
2824 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
2825 python-requests-toolbelt).
</p>
2828 <a href=
"https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
2829 screenshots.debian.net
</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
2830 Creepy program in Debian.)
</p>
2836 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/nice free software">nice free software
</a>.
2841 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2845 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html">Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe
</a>
2851 <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
2852 <a href=
"https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
2853 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
2854 believe a computer have a given security hole
</a> if it download a
2855 security fix from a Debian mirror. This is a good reason to always
2856 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
2857 listening do not know which IP address to attack. In August, Richard
2858 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
2859 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
2860 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
2861 <a href=
"http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
2862 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror
</a>. He
2863 was not the first to propose this, as the
2864 <tt><a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor
</a></tt>
2865 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
2866 to use
<a href=
"https://www.torproject.org/">Tor
</a>, but I was not
2867 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.
</p>
2869 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
2870 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
2871 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
2872 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
2873 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.
</p>
2875 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
2876 installing
<tt>apt-transport-tor
</tt> and replacing http and https
2877 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
2878 of the official Debian mirror site. I recommend installing
2879 <tt>etckeeper
</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
2883 apt install apt-transport-tor
2884 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
2885 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
2888 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
2889 the sed commands for these too. The sed command is assuming your are
2890 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror. Adjust the command (or just
2891 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.
</p>
2893 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later. Note that tools like
2894 <tt>apt-file
</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
2895 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs. For
2896 <tt>apt-file
</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
2897 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable. So if you
2898 need a working
<tt>apt-file
</tt>, this is not for you.
</p>
2900 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
2901 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
2902 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
2903 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine. Using Tor will
2904 become normal for the machine in question.
</p>
2906 <p>On
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
</a>, APT
2907 is set up by default to use
<tt>apt-transport-tor
</tt> when Tor is
2908 enabled. It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
2915 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>.
2920 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2924 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html">OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software
</a>
2930 <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
2931 call the car license plate numbers in those days. I would write the
2932 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
2933 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
2934 exotic or special region codes and numbers. It was a fun game to pass
2935 time, as we kids have plenty of it.
</p>
2937 <p>A few days I came across
2938 <a href=
"https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
2939 project
</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
2940 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
2941 "car numbers" in a machine readable format. I've been looking for
2942 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
2943 <a href=
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
2944 number plate recognition
</a> tool only is available in the hands of
2945 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
2946 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance. I
2947 discovered the developer
2948 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
2949 Debian
</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
2950 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
2953 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
2954 it into Debian, where it currently
2955 <a href=
"https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
2956 in the NEW queue
</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.
</p>
2958 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
2959 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
2960 surveillance system? Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
2961 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
2962 when number plates on my watch list are discovered. Another use case
2963 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
2964 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
2965 car. When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
2966 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
2967 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway. I
2968 guess for such use case it make sense. I am sure there are other use
2969 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.
</p>
2971 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
2972 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
2973 before running "debuild" to build the source. Or wait a bit until the
2974 package show up in unstable.
</p>
2980 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/nice free software">nice free software
</a>.
2985 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2989 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian
</a>
2995 <p>Around three years ago, I created
2996 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
2997 system
</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
2998 hardware related packages. A GUI system in the isenkram package will
2999 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
3000 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine. The same
3001 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
3002 tools in the isenkram-cli package. In addition to mapping hardware,
3003 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
3004 install needed firmware packages automatically. The key for this
3005 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
3006 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
3009 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
3010 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
3011 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
3012 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
3013 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
3014 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
3015 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
3016 appstream system
</a> was announced. I got in touch and suggested to
3017 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
3018 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
3019 Debian version of appstream.
</p>
3021 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
3022 and today I uploaded a new version
0.20 of isenkram adding support for
3023 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages. The only
3024 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
3025 pymissile package. I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
3026 how do add the required
3027 <a href=
"https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
3028 in pymissile
</a>. I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
3032 <?xml
version="
1.0"
encoding="UTF-
8"?
>
3034 <id
>pymissile
</id
>
3035 <metadata_license
>MIT
</metadata_license
>
3036 <name
>pymissile
</name
>
3037 <summary
>Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
</summary
>
3040 Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
3041 Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
3042 motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
3045 </description
>
3047 <modalias
>usb:v1130p0202d*
</modalias
>
3052 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
3053 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
3054 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel. In this case, it
3055 will map to all USB devices with vendor code
1130 and product code
3058 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
3059 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
3060 appstream files. Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
3061 these files. A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
3062 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
3063 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use). But
3064 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
3065 upstream for this project is dormant.
</p>
3067 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
3068 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
3069 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
3070 package under /usr/share/appdata/. I did this by adding the following
3071 line to debian/pymissile.install:
</p>
3074 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
3077 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
3078 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
3079 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
3080 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
3083 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
3084 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-
11</a> proposal.
</p>
3086 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
3087 try running this command on the command line:
</p>
3090 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
3093 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
3094 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
3095 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a>.
</p>
3101 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>.
3106 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3110 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust
</a>
3116 <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
3117 "
<a href=
"http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
3118 GPL is not magic pixie dust
</a>" explain the importance of making sure
3119 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
">GPL</a> is enforced.
3120 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
3124 <p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png
" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!
" align="right
" border="0" /></a></p>
3127 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
3129 The first step is to choose a
3130 <a href="https://copyleft.org/
">copyleft</a> license for your
3133 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
3134 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
3136 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
3139 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
3142 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/
">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
3143 <a href="http://faif.us/
" title="Free as in Freedom
">FaiF</a>
3144 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/
2015/nov/
24/
0x57/
">episode
3145 0x57</a></small></p>
3147 <p>As the Debian Website
3148 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/
794116">used</a>
3149 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=
1.24&r2=
1.25">to</a>
3150 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
3151 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
3152 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
3153 software products. Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
3154 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
3155 such licenses are not enough. With the ongoing adoption of Free
3156 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
3157 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
3158 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always. As Karen
3159 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/
" title="Free as in
3161 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/
2015/nov/
24/
0x57/
">episode 0x57</a>,
3162 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
3163 to protect it. The reality of today's world is that legal
3164 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming. With
3165 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/
">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
3166 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/
20151027-homepage-recovers/
">until</a>
3167 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/
">Software
3168 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
3169 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
3170 In March the SFC supported a
3171 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/
2015/mar/
05/vmware-lawsuit/
">lawsuit
3172 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
3173 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html
">comply
3174 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
3175 kernel. Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
3177 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/
2015/nov/
24/faif-carols-fundraiser/
">blocked
3178 or cancelled their talks</a>. As a result they have decided to rely
3179 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
3180 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft. So the SFC has
3181 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/
2015/nov/
23/
2015fundraiser/
">launched</a>
3182 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
">campaign</a> to create
3183 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
3184 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
3187 <p>If you support Free Software,
3188 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/
2015/nov/
26/like-what-I-do/
">like</a>
3189 what the SFC do, agree with their
3190 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html
">compliance
3191 principles</a>, are happy about their
3192 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
">successes</a> in 2015,
3193 work on a project that is an SFC
3194 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/
">member</a> and or
3195 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
3196 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA
">Christopher
3198 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/
2015/nov/
24/faif-carols-fundraiser/
">Carol
3200 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/
2015/
11/
25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/
">Jono
3201 Bacon</a>, myself and
3202 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters
">others</a> in
3204 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
">supporter</a>. For the
3205 next week your donation will be
3206 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/
2015/nov/
27/black-friday/
">matched</a>
3207 by an anonymous donor. Please also consider asking your employer to
3208 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC. Don't forget to
3209 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
3210 social media accounts.</p>
3214 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
3215 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself. Perhaps you should be a
3222 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/opphavsrett
">opphavsrett</a>.
3227 <div class="padding
"></div>
3231 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html
">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
3237 <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
3238 set it up properly. I wanted to generate it offline and have it
3239 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp
">a OpenPGP
3240 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
3241 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever. But
3242 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
3243 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key. See
3244 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2015-
11-
17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt
">the
3245 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
3246 the details. This is my new key:</p>
3249 pub 3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/
111D6B29EE4E02F9.html
">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
3250 Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1 D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
3251 uid Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>
3252 uid Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@debian.org>
3253 sub 4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3254 sub 4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3255 sub 4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3258 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
3261 <p>If you signed my old key
3262 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html
">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
3263 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
3264 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
3265 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
3271 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>.
3276 <div class="padding
"></div>
3280 <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>
3286 <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
3287 But this do not last. The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
3288 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
3289 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
3290 all the time. Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
3291 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
3292 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
3294 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2015-
09-
24-laptop-battery-graph.png
"/>
3296 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
3297 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
3298 by someone else. I found
3299 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats
">battery-stats</a>,
3300 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
3301 broken. I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
3302 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
3304 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/
2013/
08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
">a
3305 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
3307 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git
">batlog</a>, not
3308 available in Debian.</p>
3310 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
3311 battery stats ever since. Now my
3312 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
3313 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
3314 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity. My
3315 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
3320 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
3322 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
3323 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
3325 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
3326 energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
3328 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
3339 # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
3340 # when several log processes run in parallel.
3341 msg=$(printf
"%s," $(date +%s); \
3342 for f in $files; do \
3343 printf
"%s," $(cat $f); \
3348 cd /sys/class/power_supply
3351 (cd $bat && log_battery
>> "$logfile")
3355 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
3356 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
3357 and out of hibernation and suspend. In addition, it collect a value
3358 every
10 minutes. This make it possible for me know when the battery
3359 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
3360 The code for the Debian package
3361 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
3362 available on github
</a>.
</p>
3364 <p>The collected log file look like this:
</p>
3367 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
3368 1376591133,LGC,
45N1025,Li-ion,
974,
62800000,
62160000,
39050000,
0,Discharging,
3370 1443090528,LGC,
45N1025,Li-ion,
974,
4900000,
62160000,
4900000,
0,Full,
3371 1443090601,LGC,
45N1025,Li-ion,
974,
4900000,
62160000,
4900000,
0,Full,
3374 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
3375 over time. This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
3378 <p>But why is this happening? Why are my laptop batteries always
3379 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
3380 satellites keep working year after year. If we are to believe
3381 <a href=
"http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
3382 University
</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
3383 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to
100%
3384 all the time, but to stay below
90% of full charge most of the time.
3385 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
3386 <a href=
"http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
3387 the charge of their batteries to
80%
</a>, with the option to charge to
3388 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
3389 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
3390 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
3393 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
3394 stop charging at
80%, unless requested to charge to
100% once in
3395 preparation for a longer trip? I found
3396 <a href=
"http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
3397 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
3398 80%
</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
3401 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than
100%
3402 at the start. I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
3403 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
3404 back to design capacity. And I wonder if the discharge and charge
3405 speed change over time, or if this stay the same. I did not yet try
3406 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
3407 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
3410 <p>Update
2015-
09-
24: I got a tip to install the packages
3411 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
3412 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
3413 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge
40 80' to change when charging start
3414 and stop. I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
3415 and need to be replaced. The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
3422 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>.
3427 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3431 <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>
3437 <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
3438 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback. I wish to
3439 thank every one of these. Several pointed me to the possibility of
3440 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
3441 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
3442 machine. But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
3443 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
3444 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement. If I did
3445 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
3446 using
<a href=
"http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans
</a>, but it
3447 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.
</p>
3449 <p>One tip I got was to use the
3450 <a href=
"https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint
</a> web service to
3451 compare laptop models. It seem to have more models available than
3452 prisjakt.no. Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
3453 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook
840 keyboard is not
3454 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
3455 keyboards I tested. Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
3457 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
3458 newest Thinkpad X model. The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
3459 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
3460 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
3461 <a href=
"http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net
</a>. The reports I
3462 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent. Some say the keyboard
3463 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
3464 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
3465 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
3466 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
3467 replace it. I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
3468 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230. I'm
3469 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
3470 noisy. In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
3471 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.
</p>
3473 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
3474 <a href=
"http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star
</a>, another was
3475 <a href=
"http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot
</a>.
3476 The latter look very attractive to me.
</p>
3478 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback. It help a lot
3479 as I keep looking for a replacement.
</p>
3481 <p>Update
2015-
07-
06: I was recommended to check out the
3482 <a href=
"">lapstore.de
</a> web shop for used laptops. They got several
3484 <a href=
"http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
3485 thinkpad X models
</a>, and provide one year warranty.
</p>
3491 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 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3500 <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>
3506 <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
3507 replacement soon. The left
5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
3508 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
3509 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
3512 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
3514 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
3515 described them in
2013</a>. The last time I bought a laptop, I had
3517 <a href=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no
</a>
3518 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
3519 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually. Three button mouse
3520 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
3521 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook
820 G1 and
3522 G2) lack three mouse buttons). It is also unclear to me how good the
3523 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are. I hope Lenovo have not messed up
3524 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
3525 deteriorated since X41.
</p>
3527 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
3528 seem sensible to me? Are there better services around to search the
3529 set of available laptops for features? Please send me an email if you
3530 have suggestions.
</p>
3532 <p>Update
2015-
07-
23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
3533 <a href=
"http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
3534 of endorsed hardware
</a>, which is useful background information.
</p>
3540 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>.
3545 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3549 <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>
3555 <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
3556 sysvinit as its boot system by default. But how can one keep using
3557 sysvinit in Jessie? It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
3559 <a href=
"http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
3561 <a href=
"http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
3564 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
3565 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
3566 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit
</tt> with this content before
3569 <p><blockquote><pre>
3570 Package: systemd-sysv
3571 Pin: release o=Debian
3573 </pre></blockquote><p>
3575 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
3576 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
3577 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
3578 systemd as a default boot system. The end result should be that the
3579 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.
</p>
3581 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
3582 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
3583 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
3584 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot. Either by
3585 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
3586 preseed file used. First, the kernel command line argument:
3588 <p><blockquote><pre>
3589 preseed/
late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
3590 </pre></blockquote><p>
3592 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:
</p>
3594 <p><blockquote><pre>
3595 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
3596 </pre></blockquote><p>
3598 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
3599 the sysvinit-core package.
</p>
3601 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
3602 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
3603 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
3604 devices show up during boot. But on the other hand, the new default
3605 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
3606 Jessie is released.
</p>
3608 <p>Update
2014-
11-
26: Inspired by
3609 <ahref=
"https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
3610 blog post by Torsten Glaser
</a>, added --purge to the preseed
3617 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>.
3622 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3626 <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>
3632 <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
3633 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
3634 democracy. But this right is under serious attack these days.
</p>
3636 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
3637 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
3638 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
3639 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor. Such SMTP option would be
3640 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
3641 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
3642 to the people peeking on the wire. I
3643 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
3644 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October
</a> and got a
3645 lot of useful feedback and suggestions. It also became obvious to me
3646 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
3647 documented by Johannes Berg as early as
2006, and both
3648 <a href=
"https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
3649 Mailpile
</a> and
<a href=
"http://dee.su/cables">the Cables
</a> systems
3650 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.
</p>
3652 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
3653 providing the SMTP protocol on port
25, and use email addresses
3654 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion. With such addresses
3655 the connections to port
25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
3656 go to the correct SMTP server. To do this, one need to configure the
3657 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
3658 emails for this .onion domain. To learn more about Exim configuration
3659 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
3660 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
3661 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian. Getting it to work
3662 were fairly easy, and
3663 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
3664 source code for the Debian package
</a> is available from github. I
3665 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
3666 useful approach.
</p>
3668 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
3669 mail system installed (or run
<tt>apt-get purge exim4-config
</tt> to
3670 get rid of exim4). Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
3671 above, build the deb and install it on the machine. Next, run
3672 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service
</tt> and follow
3673 the instructions to get the service up and running. Restart tor and
3674 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
3677 <p><blockquote><pre>
3678 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
3679 --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
3680 </pre></blockquote></p>
3682 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor. Replace the email
3683 address with your own address to test your server. :)
</p>
3685 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
3686 easier and more automatic. Especially the tor setup need more work.
3687 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
3688 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
3689 architecture independent. It would probably also make the code easier
3690 to review. The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
3691 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd. It would be better if
3692 no daemon and no socket is needed. I suspect it is possible to get
3693 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
3694 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
3697 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
3698 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
</tt> mail address, deliverable over
3705 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>.
3710 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3714 <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>
3720 <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
3721 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
3722 operate. First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
3723 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
3724 and various options for each email address. This take a while for
3725 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
3726 job as a list moderator. But there is a quick alternative,
3727 <a href=
"http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
3728 listadmin program
</a>. It allow you to check lists for new messages
3729 to moderate in a fraction of a second. Here is a test run on two
3730 lists I recently took over:
</p>
3732 <p><blockquote><pre>
3733 % time listadmin xiph
3734 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
3735 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
3741 </pre></blockquote></p>
3743 <p>In
1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
3744 there are no message in the moderation queue. Every morning I
3745 currently moderate
68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
3746 minutes. When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
3747 ago, there were
400 emails waiting in the moderator queue. It took me
3748 less than
15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
3752 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
3753 package
</a> from Debian and create a file
<tt>~/.listadmin.ini
</tt>
3754 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:
</p>
3756 <p><blockquote><pre>
3757 username username@example.org
3760 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
3763 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
3764 mailman-list@lists.example.com
3767 other-list@otherserver.example.org
3768 </pre></blockquote></p>
3770 <p>There are other options to set as well. Check the manual page to
3771 learn the details.
</p>
3773 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
3774 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
3775 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
3776 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:
</p>
3778 <p><blockquote><pre>
3779 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 listadmin
3780 </pre></blockquote></p>
3782 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
3783 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
3784 initial screen dump (the xiph argument). Using an argument, only
3785 lists matching the argument string will be processed. This make it
3786 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
3789 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of
68
3790 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
3791 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
3792 time I could spend elsewhere over the years. It truly is nice free
3795 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3796 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3797 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
3799 <p>Update
2014-
10-
27: Added missing 'username' statement in
3800 configuration example. Also, I've been told that the
3801 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 setting do not work for everyone. Not
3808 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/nice free software">nice free software
</a>.
3813 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3817 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation
</a>
3823 <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
3824 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
3825 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
3826 Normally something more is needed. But thanks to
3827 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
3828 package
</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
3829 to do this using simple preseeding.
</p>
3831 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
3832 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
3833 the kernel modules for the hardware). (It can also install user space
3834 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
3837 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
3838 values are needed. First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
3839 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
3840 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system. This is done by
3841 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
3842 isenkram-cli package. The package name is next passed to debootstrap
3843 for installation. With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
3844 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
3845 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
3846 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.
</p>
3848 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
3849 most firmware unfortunately is non-free. This is done by preseeding
3850 the apt-mirror-setup step. This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
3851 hardware it is the only option in Debian.
</p>
3853 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
3854 firmware installed automatically by the installer:
</p>
3856 <p><blockquote><pre>
3857 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
3858 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
3859 </pre></blockquote></p>
3861 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
3862 both firmware and user space packages when using this method. It also
3863 do not work well, so use version
0.15 or later. Installing both
3864 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
3865 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
3866 and one for user space programs. The firmware task is enabled by
3867 default, while the one for user space programs is not. This split is
3868 implemented in the package currently in unstable.
</p>
3870 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
3871 this recipe work for you. :)
</p>
3873 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work. First and
3874 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
3875 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/. So the
3876 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find. First there
3877 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):
</p>
3879 <p><blockquote><pre>
3880 Task: isenkram-packages
3882 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
3883 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
3885 Test-new-install: show show
3887 Packages: for-current-hardware
3889 Task: isenkram-firmware
3891 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
3892 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
3893 packages are proposed.
3894 Test-new-install: mark show
3896 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
3897 </pre></blockquote></p>
3899 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
3900 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
3901 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/. The scripts use other scripts to get a
3902 list of packages to install. The for-current-hardware-firmware script
3903 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
3905 <p><blockquote><pre>
3908 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
3910 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
3911 </pre></blockquote></p>
3913 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
3914 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)
</p>
3916 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
3917 installed, run
<tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
3918 --new-install
</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
3921 <p><a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu
</a> will be
3922 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
3923 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.
</p>
3929 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>.
3934 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3938 <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>
3944 <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen. Above the
3945 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
3946 with Linux kernel
3.2.0-
23 (ie probably version
12.04 LTS) was stuck
3947 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:
</p>
3949 <p align=
"center"><img width=
"70%" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
3951 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
3952 about this hidden Linux installation. It is interesting what
3953 <a href=
"http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal
</a>.
</p>
3959 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>.
3964 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3968 <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>
3974 <p>The
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project
</a>
3975 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
3976 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
3977 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
3980 <p>I just wrapped up
3981 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
3982 new lsdvd release
</a>, available in git or from
3983 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
3984 download page
</a>. This is the changelog dated
2014-
10-
03 for version
3989 <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks
</li>
3990 <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
3991 non-existant, to work around additional copy protection
</li>
3992 <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles
</li>
3993 <li>Fix pallete display of first entry
</li>
3994 <li>Fix include orders
</li>
3995 <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway
</li>
3996 <li>Fix the chapter count
</li>
3997 <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
3998 the palette size is the same.
</li>
3999 <li>Fix array printing.
</li>
4000 <li>Correct subsecond calculations.
</li>
4001 <li>Add sector information to the output format.
</li>
4002 <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
4003 with more GCC compiler warnings.
</li>
4007 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
4008 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
4009 project the last nine years. Please check it out. :)
</p>
4015 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>.
4020 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4024 <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>
4030 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4031 project
</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
4032 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
4033 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
4034 boot of both clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
4035 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
4036 to mention here). We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
4037 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
4038 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
4040 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
4041 status
</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
4042 work left. Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
4043 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway. Here is a
4044 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.
</p>
4046 <p>First, download the test ISO via
4047 <a href=
"ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp
</a>,
4048 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http
</a>
4050 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-
1.iso).
4051 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
4052 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
4053 install with some tweaking.
</p>
4055 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
4056 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run
</p>
4058 <p><blockquote><pre>
4059 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
4060 </pre></blockquote></p>
4062 <p>and add 'exit
0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
4063 optimization. Return to the installation, select the profile you want
4064 and continue. Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
4065 due to a known bug in eatmydata.
</p>
4067 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
4068 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be. All my
4069 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
4072 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
4073 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
4074 education-desktop-XXX metapackage. XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
4075 or mate. If you want several desktop options, install more than one
4076 metapackage. Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
4077 graphical login screen. This workaround should no longer be needed
4078 once the education-tasks package version
1.801 enter testing in two
4081 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
4082 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
4083 update the debian-cd git repository. The eatmydata, grub and desktop
4084 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
4085 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again. Well the
4086 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled. The proper fix
4087 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
4088 provided in bug
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#
702711</a>.
4089 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.
</p>
4091 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
4092 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
4093 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.
</p>
4099 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>.
4104 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4108 <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>
4114 <p>I use the
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool
</a>
4115 to handle my fairly large DVD collection. It is a nice command line
4116 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
4117 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format. But lsdvd have not seen
4118 any new development since
2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
4119 its use with some DVDs. Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
4120 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
4121 project, without any reply. But I use it regularly and would like to
4122 get
<a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
4123 into Debian
</a>. So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
4124 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
4125 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
4126 over. And yesterday, I became project admin.
</p>
4128 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
4129 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
4130 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
4131 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
4132 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
4133 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too. If you got
4134 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
4135 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source
</a> and join
4136 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
4143 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>.
4148 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4152 <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>
4158 <p>The
<a href=
"https://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a> installer could be
4159 a lot quicker. When we install more than
2000 packages in
4160 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu
</a> using
4161 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
4162 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
4163 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #
613428</a> about too
4164 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
4165 responsible for unpacking the binary packages. Other parts (like code
4166 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
4167 installation. All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
4168 me. If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
4169 to salvage the half installed system. So the failure sync-ing is
4170 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
4171 relevant while the installer is running.
</p>
4173 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
4174 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
4175 change the code in several packages. The idea is not new, but I have
4176 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before. It
4177 depend on the small and clever package
4178 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata
</a>, which
4179 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
4180 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
4181 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly. Instead of
4182 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
4183 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
4184 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
4185 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
4186 "eatmydata
$program
$@", to get the same effect.
4187 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
4188 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.
</p>
4190 <p>The effect was stunning. In my first test it reduced the running
4191 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from
64 to less than
44
4192 minutes (
20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
4193 Latitude D505 machine. I am not quite sure what the optimised time
4194 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
4195 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
4196 installation. As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
4197 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
4198 installation. I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
4199 and got these results. The time measured is the time stamp in
4200 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
4201 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
4202 yourself. In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
4203 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
4209 <th>Machine/setup
</th>
4210 <th>Original tasksel
</th>
4211 <th>Optimised tasksel
</th>
4216 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE
</td>
4217 <td>64 min (
07:
46-
08:
50)
</td>
4218 <td><44 min (
11:
27-
12:
11)
</td>
4219 <td>>20 min
18%
</td>
4223 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE
</td>
4224 <td>57 min (
08:
48-
09:
45)
</td>
4225 <td>34 min (
07:
43-
08:
17)
</td>
4230 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal
</td>
4231 <td>22 min (
10:
37-
10:
59)
</td>
4232 <td>11 min (
11:
16-
11:
27)
</td>
4237 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal
</td>
4238 <td>6 min (
08:
19-
08:
25)
</td>
4239 <td>4 min (
08:
04-
08:
08)
</td>
4244 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE
</td>
4245 <td>19 min (
09:
21-
09:
40)
</td>
4246 <td>15 min (
10:
25-
10:
40)
</td>
4252 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
4253 time is spent downloading packages. The connection to the Internet
4254 was
100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
4255 significant factor in the measurement. Download typically took a few
4256 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
4259 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
4260 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
4261 Installer
</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
4262 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
4263 installation. I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
4264 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
4265 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
4266 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO. The
4267 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
4268 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i. If the code is
4269 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
4270 for the entire installation.
</p>
4272 <p>I've implemented this in the
4273 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install
</a>
4274 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
4275 Debian Edu installation. If you want to test this yourself, you can
4276 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb). One shell script
4277 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:
</p>
4279 <p><blockquote><pre>
4282 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
4284 logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
4287 logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
4289 override_install() {
4290 apt-install eatmydata || true
4291 if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
4292 for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
4294 # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
4295 if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
4296 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
4297 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
4299 chmod
755 /target$file.edu
4300 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
4301 --rename --quiet --add $file
4302 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
4304 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
4308 error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
4313 </pre></blockquote></p>
4315 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
4316 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
4318 <p><blockquote><pre>
4320 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
4322 logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
4324 remove_install_override() {
4325 for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
4327 if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
4329 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
4330 --rename --quiet --remove $file
4333 error "Missing divert for $file."
4336 sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
4339 remove_install_override
4340 </pre></blockquote></p>
4342 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
4343 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
4344 finish-install.d scripts.
</p>
4346 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
4347 Debian installer too? I suspect it should, but am not sure the
4348 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough. It also
4349 depend on the side effects of the change. I'm not aware of any, but I
4350 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
4351 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
4352 fsync() having effect? Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
4353 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
4356 <p>Update
2014-
09-
24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
4357 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
4358 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #
702711</a>. An updated
4359 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.
</p>
4361 <p>Update
2014-
10-
17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
4362 the optimization work again. And I have discovered that the
4363 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
4364 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package. See
4365 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.
</p>
4367 <p>Update
2014-
11-
11: Unfortunately, a new
4368 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #
765738</a> in eatmydata only
4369 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
4370 optimization again. If
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
4371 request
768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.
</p>
4377 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>.
4382 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4386 <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>
4392 <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
4393 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group
</a> about
4394 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
4395 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net
</a>, and was very happy to
4396 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
4397 use when looking for peoples public key. So far I have used
4398 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
4399 were misbehaving, but those days are ended. The servers I have used
4400 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable. I hope
4401 those problems are gone now.
</p>
4403 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
4404 <a href=
"https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net
</a> service
4405 there is a pool of more than
100 keyservers which are checked every
4406 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date. It must be
4407 better than what I have used so far. :)
</p>
4409 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
4410 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
4411 not seem to be used in Debian. Perhaps it should?
</p>
4413 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
4416 <p><blockquote><pre>
4417 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
4418 </pre></blockquote></p>
4420 <p>With GnuPG version
2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
4421 entries in DNS. Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
4422 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
4423 keyserver automatically should their need it:
</p>
4425 <p><blockquote><pre>
4426 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
4427 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record
0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
4429 </pre></blockquote></p>
4432 <a href=
"http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
4433 HKP lookup protocol
</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
4434 very happy. It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
4435 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
4436 another key. Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
4437 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
4438 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
4439 This is as far as I can tell not possible today. Perhaps something
4440 for a future version of the protocol?
</p>
4446 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>.
4451 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4455 <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>
4461 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4462 project
</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
4463 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
4464 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation. This text is about how the
4465 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.
</p>
4467 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
4468 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
4469 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
4470 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
4471 in sync. And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
4472 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
4473 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
4474 edit the documentation using a web browser. We also want it to be
4475 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
4476 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
4477 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
4480 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
4481 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
4482 wiki
</a>, as several wiki pages written in English. It consist of one
4483 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
4484 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
4485 chapters together into one large web page (aka
4486 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
4487 AllInOne page
</a>). The AllInOne page is the one used for further
4488 processing and translations. Thanks to the fact that the
4489 <a href=
"http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin
</a> installation on
4490 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
4491 <a href=
"http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format
</a>, we can fetch
4492 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
4493 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
4494 manual. This process also download images and transform image
4495 references to use the locally downloaded images. The generated
4496 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
4497 using the
<tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual
</tt> program, and the
4498 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
4499 a handfull of images. The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
4500 and epub versions of the English manual. This is the basic step of
4501 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
4502 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
4503 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.
</p>
4505 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us. We want translated
4506 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
4507 track the English original. For this we use the
4508 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml
</a> package,
4509 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
4510 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
4511 translation tools used by those translating free software. The pot
4512 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
4513 files), which the translations update with the native language
4514 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
4515 original. The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
4516 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
4517 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
4518 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml). This translated (or partly
4519 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
4520 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
4521 of the documentation.
</p>
4523 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files. We
4525 <a href=
"http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize
</a>,
4526 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
4527 <a href=
"http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle
</a> or
4528 <a href=
"https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex
</a>. All we care about
4529 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository. Updated
4530 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
4531 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
4532 against the debian-edu-doc package
</a>.
</p>
4534 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
4535 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
4536 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
4537 this regard). For this we transform the original PNG images to the
4538 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
4539 translated images by storing translated versions in
4540 images/$LANGUAGECODE/. I am a bit unsure about the details here. The
4541 package maintainers know more.
</p>
4543 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
4544 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
4545 of the documentation packages on the web
</a>. See for example the
4546 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
4547 PDF version
</a> or the
4548 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
4549 HTML version
</a>. We do not yet build the epub version by default,
4550 but perhaps it will be done in the future.
</p>
4552 <p>To learn more, check out
4553 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
4554 debian-edu-doc package
</a>,
4555 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
4556 manual on the wiki
</a> and
4557 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
4558 translation instructions
</a> in the manual.
</p>
4564 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>.
4569 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4573 <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>
4579 <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
4580 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
4581 So I implemented one, using
4582 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
4583 package
</a>. To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
4584 run tasksel as user root. You should be presented with a new option,
4585 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)". When you
4586 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
4587 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.
<p>
4589 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
4590 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
4591 packages to install. The first part is in
4592 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc
</tt> and look like
4595 <p><blockquote><pre>
4598 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
4599 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
4601 Test-new-install: mark show
4603 Packages: for-current-hardware
4604 </pre></blockquote></p>
4606 <p>The second part is in
4607 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware
</tt> and look like
4610 <p><blockquote><pre>
4615 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
4617 </pre></blockquote></p>
4619 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
4620 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
4621 have installed on our machines. I've not been able to find a way to
4622 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
4623 before doing the installation. So if you are curious or careful,
4624 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.
</p>
4626 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
4627 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
4628 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
4629 database (using the Modaliases header). The APT package database
4630 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
4631 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#
719837</a> and
4632 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#
730704</a>). The cause is in
4633 the python-apt code (bug
4634 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#
745487</a>), but using a
4635 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
4636 reduce the memory leak from ~
30 MiB per hardware detection down to
4637 around
2 MiB per hardware detection. It should make the desktop
4638 daemon a lot more useful. The fix is in version
0.7 uploaded to
4641 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
4642 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
4643 use the AppStream data source for this. A proposal for getting proper
4644 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
4645 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-
11</a>, and
4646 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
4647 project
</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation. I
4648 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
4649 start using the information when it is ready.
</p>
4651 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
4652 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
4653 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
4654 package
</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
4656 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
4657 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a> for details on the notation. I expect
4658 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
4659 moment I got no better place to store it.
</p>
4665 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>.
4670 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4674 <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>
4680 <p>The
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
4681 project
</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
4682 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
4683 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
4684 encrypted and away from prying eyes. It is still going strong, and
4685 today a major mile stone was reached.
</p>
4687 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
4688 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable. It was
4689 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
4690 during build and on the first boot. Now all one need to get going is
4691 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
4692 Debian. And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
4693 build everything directly from Debian. :)
</p>
4695 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
4696 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup
</a>,
4697 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth
</a>,
4698 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite
</a>,
4699 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor
</a>,
4700 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy
</a>,
4701 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud
</a> and
4702 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq
</a>. There
4703 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup. User
4704 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki. Please
4705 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
4706 the manual
</a> and help us improve it.
</p>
4708 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
4709 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
4713 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
4714 mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
4716 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
4718 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
4721 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
4722 devices. See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
4723 details on the build. If you do not want all three images, trim the
4724 make line. Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
4725 virtualbox specific. It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
4726 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment. You might need
4727 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
4728 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.
</p>
4730 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
4731 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
4732 the preseed values:
</p>
4735 url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
</a>
4738 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
4741 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
4742 systemd as the boot system. It will become the default for Linux in
4743 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox. I did
4744 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
4745 during boot when using systemd. I suspect there are other problems
4746 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
4747 be run from the plinth web interface.
</p>
4749 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
4750 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
4751 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
4752 irc.debian.org)
</a> and
4753 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
4754 mailing list
</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p>
4760 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>.
4765 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4769 <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>
4775 <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
4776 solution for use at home. My requirements are simple, it must be
4777 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
4778 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
4779 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
4780 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
4781 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
4782 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space. On top
4783 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
4784 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage. But
4785 I never found time to implement such system. But the last few weeks I
4786 have looked at a system called
4787 <a href=
"https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL
</a>, a locally
4788 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.
</p>
4790 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
4791 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
4792 Google Drive or OpenStack API. There are heaps of such storage
4793 providers. S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
4794 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server. S3QL
4795 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
4796 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
4797 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
4798 while the content is stored in the cloud as well. This allow me to
4799 have a backup that should survive fire. The file system can not be
4800 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
4801 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
4802 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.
</p>
4804 <p>It is simple to use. I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
4805 package is included already. So to get started, run
<tt>apt-get
4806 install s3ql
</tt>. Next, pick a storage provider. I ended up picking
4807 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
4808 <a href=
"https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
4809 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service
</a>, because I trust the laws
4810 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
4811 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
4812 in Iceland. Another nice recipe is available from the article
4813 <a href=
"http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
4814 Filesystem for HPC Storage
</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
4815 Admin magazine. When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
4816 the API key needed to connect to the storage API. With Greencloud,
4817 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
4820 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
4821 system. First, create a new bucket in the cloud. This bucket is the
4822 file system storage area. I picked a bucket name reflecting the
4823 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
4824 I'll refer to it as
<tt>bucket-name
</tt> below. In addition, one need
4825 the API login and password, and a locally created password. Store it
4826 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
4828 <p><blockquote><pre>
4830 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
4831 backend-login: API-login
4832 backend-password: API-password
4833 fs-passphrase: local-password
4834 </pre></blockquote></p>
4836 <p>I create my local passphrase using
<tt>pwget
50</tt> or similar,
4837 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
4838 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
4839 details and password to create it:
</p>
4841 <p><blockquote><pre>
4842 # mkdir -m
700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
4843 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
4844 --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
4845 Enter backend login:
4846 Enter backend password:
4847 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
4848 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
4849 Enter encryption password:
4850 Confirm encryption password:
4851 Generating random encryption key...
4852 Creating metadata tables...
4862 Compressing and uploading metadata...
4863 Wrote
0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
4864 #
</pre></blockquote></p>
4866 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
4868 <p><blockquote><pre>
4869 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
4870 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name /s3ql
4871 Using
4 upload threads.
4872 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
4882 Mounting filesystem...
4884 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
4885 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
1.0T
0 1.0T
0% /s3ql
4887 </pre></blockquote></p>
4889 <p>The file system is now ready for use. I use rsync to store my
4890 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
4891 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
4892 running rsync. To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
4893 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
4894 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
4896 <p><blockquote><pre>
4899 </pre></blockquote></p>
4901 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
4902 correct any problems detected. This can be used if the local server
4903 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
4904 mounted" flag. This is what it look like when processing a working
4907 <p><blockquote><pre>
4908 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
4909 Using cached metadata.
4910 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
4911 Checking DB integrity...
4912 Creating temporary extra indices...
4913 Checking lost+found...
4914 Checking cached objects...
4915 Checking names (refcounts)...
4916 Checking contents (names)...
4917 Checking contents (inodes)...
4918 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
4919 Checking objects (reference counts)...
4920 Checking objects (backend)...
4921 ..processed
5000 objects so far..
4922 ..processed
10000 objects so far..
4923 ..processed
15000 objects so far..
4924 Checking objects (sizes)...
4925 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
4926 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
4927 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
4928 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
4929 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
4930 Checking inodes (sizes)...
4931 Checking extended attributes (names)...
4932 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
4933 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
4934 Checking directory reachability...
4935 Checking unix conventions...
4936 Checking referential integrity...
4937 Dropping temporary indices...
4938 Backing up old metadata...
4948 Compressing and uploading metadata...
4949 Wrote
0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
4951 </pre></blockquote></p>
4953 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
4954 quick, about the same speed as local file access. Uploading large
4955 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
4956 house. Uploading
685 MiB with a
100 MiB cache gave me
305 kiB/s,
4957 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
4958 Debian installation ISO gave me
610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
4959 Both were measured using
<tt>dd
</tt>. So for me, the bottleneck is my
4960 network, not the file system code. I do not know what a good cache
4961 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
4964 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
4965 time. If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
4968 <p><blockquote><pre>
4969 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
4970 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name /s3ql
4971 Using
8 upload threads.
4972 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
4974 </pre></blockquote></p>
4976 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
4977 metadata is uploaded once every
24 hour by default. To ensure the
4978 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
4979 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
4982 <p><blockquote><pre>
4983 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
4984 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
4986 </pre></blockquote></p>
4988 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
4989 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
4990 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
4993 <p><blockquote><pre>
4995 Directory entries:
9141
4998 Total data size:
22049.38 MB
4999 After de-duplication:
21955.46 MB (
99.57% of total)
5000 After compression:
21877.28 MB (
99.22% of total,
99.64% of de-duplicated)
5001 Database size:
2.39 MB (uncompressed)
5002 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
5004 </pre></blockquote></p>
5006 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
5007 storage. I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
5008 <a href=
"https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud
</a>,
5009 <a href=
"http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive
</a>,
5010 <a href=
"http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces
</a>,
5011 <a href=
"http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace
</a> and
5012 <a href=
"http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud
</A>. The latter even
5013 accept payment in Bitcoin. Pick one that suit your need. Some of
5014 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
5015 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
5018 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
5019 and posters discussing the S3QL file system. There are several, which
5020 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
5021 science community and increased my confidence in using it. One nice
5023 "
<a href=
"http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
5024 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
5025 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach
</a>" by Hsing-Bung
5026 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
5027 and Pamela Smith. Please have a look.</p>
5029 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
5030 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
5031 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
5032 it come to locking and umask handling etc). Running
5033 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html
">my
5034 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
5035 no error was found. So the file system can be used for home
5036 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
5038 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
5039 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
5040 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/
">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
5041 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client. It have
5042 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
5043 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
5044 only read from it.</p>
5046 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5047 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5048 <b><a href="bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5054 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/nice free software
">nice free software</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>.
5059 <div class="padding
"></div>
5063 <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>
5069 <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">Freedombox
5070 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
5071 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
5072 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
5073 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes. It has been
5074 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
5077 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
5078 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
5079 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
5080 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
5081 file. The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
5082 where most of the needed packages used are already present. Only one,
5083 the freedombox-setup package, is missing. To try to build your own
5084 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
5086 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap
</a>
5087 with a user with sudo access to become root:
5090 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
5092 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
5093 mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
5095 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
5098 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
5099 devices. See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
5100 want all three images, trim the make line. But note that thanks to
<a
5101 href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
5102 vmdebootstrap
</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
5105 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
5106 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
5107 the preseed values:
</p>
5110 url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
</a>
5113 <p>But note that due to
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
5114 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie
</a>, the installer will
5115 currently hang while setting up APT sources. Killing the
5116 '
<tt>apt-cdrom ident
</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
5117 installation will get the installation going. This affect all
5118 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.
</p>
5120 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
5121 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
5122 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
5123 irc.debian.org)
</a> and
5124 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
5125 mailing list
</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p>
5131 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>.
5136 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5140 <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>
5146 <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
5147 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
5148 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a>. I called the project
5149 ng-utils, and it has served me well. I placed the project under the
5150 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer
</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
5151 repository. But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
5152 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
5153 proper home since then.
</p>
5155 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
5156 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
5157 a proper source control system. I applied for a project on
5158 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth
</a>, but did not have time
5159 to follow up on it. Until today. :)
</p>
5161 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
5162 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
5163 history of the project. I published all release tarballs and imported
5164 them into the git repository. As the project is really stable and not
5165 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
5166 release and call it
1.0. Visit the new project home on
5167 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/
</a>
5168 if you want to check it out. The new version is also uploaded into
5169 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable
</a>.
</p>
5175 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>.
5180 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5184 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd
</a>
5190 <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
5191 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
5192 boot system instead of their old one. This follow up on the
5193 <a href=
"https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
5194 Google Summer of Code work
</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
5195 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux. To get started,
5196 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
5197 <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>,
5198 and started it using virt-manager.
</p>
5200 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
5201 password) was to get the network operational. I followed
5202 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
5203 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page
</a> and ran these
5204 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
5205 kvm internal DHCP server:
</p>
5207 <p><blockquote><pre>
5208 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
5209 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $
2}')
5210 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $
2}')
5212 </pre></blockquote></p>
5214 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
5215 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
5216 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.
</p>
5218 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
5219 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
5220 set. Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
5221 compression from working. Remember to turn that off on the client
5224 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
5227 <p><blockquote><pre>
5228 cat
> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list
<<EOF
5229 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
5232 apt-get dist-upgrade
5233 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
5234 sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
5235 update-alternatives --config runsystem
5236 </pre></blockquote></p>
5238 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
5239 <tt>reboot-hurd
</tt> instead of just
<tt>reboot
</tt>, as there is not
5240 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
5241 'reboot' command. After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
5242 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
5243 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
5244 start is no longer needed. But for some strange reason, there are no
5245 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
5248 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
5249 fail some times. No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
5250 figure it out. At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
5251 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem. A way to reduce
5252 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
5253 adding this repository to the machine:
</p>
5255 <p><blockquote><pre>
5256 cat
> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list
<<EOF
5257 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
5259 </pre></blockquote></p>
5261 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
5262 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
5263 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
5264 BTS. This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:
</p>
5266 <p><blockquote><pre>
5267 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
5268 i emacs - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
5269 i gdb - GNU Debugger
5270 i hurd-recommended - Miscellaneous translators
5271 i isc-dhcp-client - ISC DHCP client
5272 i isc-dhcp-common - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
5273 i libc-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
5274 i libc-dev-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
5275 i libc0.3 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
5276 i A libc0.3-dbg - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
5277 i libc0.3-dev - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
5278 i multiarch-support - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
5279 i A x11-common - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
5280 i xorg - X.Org X Window System
5281 i A xserver-xorg - X.Org X server
5282 i A xserver-xorg-input-all - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
5284 </pre></blockquote></p>
5286 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
5287 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
5288 the porters instructions to fix it. This time I was interested in the
5289 command line stuff.
<p>
5295 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>.
5300 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5304 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release
0.16</a>
5310 <p><a href=
"http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity
</a> is a nice tool to
5311 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
5312 analysis. It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
5313 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
5314 the source. The company behind it provide
5315 <a href=
"https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
5316 a community service
</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
5317 already checked. A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
5318 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
5319 <a href=
"http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash
</a> and
5320 <a href=
"http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool
</a>
5321 projects I am involved with was already registered. But these are
5322 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
5323 check, and decided to
<a href=
"http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
5324 checking of the chrpath project
</a>. It was
5325 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects. Six of
5326 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
5327 error. Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
5328 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
5329 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
5330 the future end up in a library. Having fixed all defects and added
5331 <a href=
"https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
5332 mailing list for the chrpath developers
</a>, I decided it was time to
5333 publish a new release. These are the release notes:
</p>
5335 <p>New in
0.16 released
2014-
01-
14:
</p>
5339 <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.
</li>
5340 <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.
</li>
5341 <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.
</li>
5346 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
5347 new version
0.16 from alioth
</a>. Please let us know via the Alioth
5348 project if something is wrong with the new release. The test suite
5349 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
5350 include a test suite check.
</p>
5356 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>.
5361 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5365 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release
0.15</a>
5371 <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
5372 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
5373 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
5374 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
5375 compiled ELF programs. The update was triggered by the persistence of
5376 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
5377 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc
64-bit Little Endian) he
5378 is working on. I checked the
5379 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian
</a>,
5380 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu
</a> and
5381 <a href=
"https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora
</a>
5382 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
5383 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
5384 These are the release notes:
</p>
5386 <p>New in
0.15 released
2013-
11-
24:
</p>
5390 <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
5391 with newer architectures. Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
5394 <li>Updated README with current URLs.
</li>
5396 <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
5397 Matthias Klose.
</li>
5399 <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
5400 Petr Machata found in Fedora.
</li>
5402 <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
5403 .dynamic is a NULL terminated string. Based on patch found in
5404 Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.
</li>
5409 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
5410 new version
0.15 from alioth
</a>. Please let us know via the Alioth
5411 project if something is wrong with the new release. The test suite
5412 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
5413 include a testsuite check.
</p>
5419 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>.
5424 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5428 <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>
5434 <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
5435 <a href=
"http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
5436 init.d scripts
</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
5437 init.d scripts at all. Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
5438 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:
</p>
5441 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
5444 # Required-Start: $remote_fs $time
5445 # Required-Stop: umountnfs $time
5446 # X-Stop-After: sendsigs
5447 # Default-Start:
2 3 4 5
5448 # Default-Stop:
0 1 6
5449 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
5450 # Description: Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
5451 # It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
5452 # used as a drop-in replacement.
5454 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
5455 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
5458 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
5459 script was
137 lines, and the above is just
15 lines, most of it meta
5462 <p>How to do this, you ask? Well, one create a new script
5463 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
5468 # Define LSB log_* functions.
5469 # Depend on lsb-base (
>=
3.2-
14) to ensure that this file is present
5470 # and status_of_proc is working.
5471 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
5474 # Function that starts the daemon/service
5480 #
0 if daemon has been started
5481 #
1 if daemon was already running
5482 #
2 if daemon could not be started
5483 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test
> /dev/null \
5485 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
5488 # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
5489 # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
5490 # on this one. As a last resort, sleep for some time.
5494 # Function that stops the daemon/service
5499 #
0 if daemon has been stopped
5500 #
1 if daemon was already stopped
5501 #
2 if daemon could not be stopped
5502 # other if a failure occurred
5503 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/
30/KILL/
5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
5505 [ "$RETVAL" =
2 ] && return
2
5506 # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
5507 # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
5508 # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
5509 # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
5510 # needed by services started subsequently. A last resort is to
5511 # sleep for some time.
5512 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=
0/
30/KILL/
5 --exec $DAEMON
5513 [ "$?" =
2 ] && return
2
5514 # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
5520 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
5524 # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
5525 # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
5526 # then implement that here.
5528 start-stop-daemon --stop --signal
1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
5533 scriptbasename="$(basename $
1)"
5534 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
5535 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
5543 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
5544 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
5546 # Exit if the package is not installed
5547 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit
0
5549 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
5550 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
5552 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
5557 [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
5560 0|
1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
0 ;;
5561 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
1 ;;
5565 [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
5568 0|
1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
0 ;;
5569 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg
1 ;;
5573 status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit
0 || exit $?
5575 #reload|force-reload)
5577 # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
5578 # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
5580 #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
5584 restart|force-reload)
5586 # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
5587 # 'force-reload' alias
5589 log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
5596 1) log_end_msg
1 ;; # Old process is still running
5597 *) log_end_msg
1 ;; # Failed to start
5607 echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}"
>&
2
5615 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
5616 lot. I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
5617 work out of the box, but you get the idea. I did not try very hard to
5618 optimize it nor make it more robust either.
</p>
5620 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
5621 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
5622 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
5623 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially. The boot
5624 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.
</p>
5630 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>.
5635 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5639 <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>
5645 <p><a href=
"http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol
</a> for
5646 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
5647 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
5648 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
5649 missing in Debian. The
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
5650 for a package
</a> was from
2012-
04-
10 with no progress since
5651 2013-
04-
01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
5652 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
5653 repository to get a package I could use. I would very much like
5654 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
5655 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
5656 NEW. I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.
</p>
5658 <p>The source is now available from
5659 <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>
5665 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>.
5670 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5674 <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>
5681 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap
</a>
5682 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images. It
5683 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
5684 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
5685 stick. Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
5686 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi
</a>, as part
5687 of a plan to simplify the build system for
5688 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
5689 project
</a>. The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
5690 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
5691 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
5694 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
5695 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
5696 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
5697 Debian laptop. I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
5698 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
5699 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
5700 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi
</a>. First, the
5701 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler
</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
5702 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
5703 generated chroot before running the second stage. This allow
5704 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host. Next I added
5705 two new options
<tt>--bootsize size
</tt> and
<tt>--boottype
5706 fstype
</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
5707 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
5708 partition for the /boot/ stuff. I also added a
<tt>--variant
5709 variant
</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
5710 Debian base system packages installed. Finally, I added an option
5711 <tt>--no-extlinux
</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
5712 as a boot loader. It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
5713 most other non-x86 architectures. The changes were accepted by the
5714 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
5716 <a href=
"http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
5717 upstream project page
</a>.
</p>
5719 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
5720 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
5721 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
5726 set -e # Exit on first error
5729 cat
<<EOF
> etc/apt/sources.list
5730 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
5732 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi. This
5733 # install a kernel somewhere too.
5734 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
5735 -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
5736 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
5737 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
5738 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
5739 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
5742 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
5743 to build the image:
</p>
5746 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
5749 --distribution jessie \
5750 --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
5759 --root-password raspberry \
5760 --hostname raspberrypi \
5761 --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
5762 --customize `pwd`/customize \
5764 --package git-core \
5765 --package binutils \
5766 --package ca-certificates \
5771 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
5772 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
5773 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
5774 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant. I really wish there was a way to
5775 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
5776 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
5777 using a non-free binary blob.
</p>
5779 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
5780 probably a few others installed. I have not checked the complete
5781 build dependency list.
</p>
5783 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
5784 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
5785 optimized for that use. So the images created will be a bit slower
5786 than
<a href=
"http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian
</a> based images.
</p>
5792 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>.
5797 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5801 <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>
5807 <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
5808 wider attention. I recommend signing and donating to each one of
5811 <p>Via
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
5812 Project News for
2013-
10-
14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
5813 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
5814 more women involved in free software. One debian sponsor has offered
5815 to match
<a href=
"http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
5816 earmarked
</a> for this initiative. I donated a few minutes ago, and
5817 hope you will to. :)
</p>
5819 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
5820 create
<a href=
"https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
5821 documentaries about the excessive spying
</a> on every Internet user that
5822 take place these days, and their need to fund the work. I've already
5823 donated. Are you next?
</p>
5825 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
5826 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
5827 statement under the heading
5828 <a href=
"http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
5829 Access
</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
5830 Norwegian government. So far
499 signatures. I hope you will sign it
5837 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>.
5842 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5846 <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>
5852 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
5853 project
</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
5854 vision, ideas and solution several places. Here is a little
5855 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.
</p>
5859 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
5860 2,
5 minute marketing film
</a> (Youtube)
</li>
5862 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
5863 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news
2011</a> (Youtube)
</li>
5865 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
5866 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
5867 Web
2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting
2010</a>
5870 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem
2011
5871 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox
</a> (Youtube)
</li>
5873 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
5874 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz
2011</a> (Youtube)
</li>
5876 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
5877 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
5878 York City in
2012</a> (Youtube)
</li>
5880 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
5881 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in
2012</a>
5884 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
5885 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat,
2012</a> (Youtube)
</li>
5887 <li><a href=
"https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
5888 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem
2013</a> (FOSDEM)
</li>
5890 <li><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
5891 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
5892 2013</a> (Youtube)
</li>
5896 <p>A larger list is available from
5897 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
5898 Freedombox Wiki
</a>.
</p>
5900 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
5901 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
5902 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
5903 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
5904 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
5905 pending in NEW. The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
5906 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload. Join
5907 us on
<a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
5908 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)
</a> and
5909 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
5910 mailing list
</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p>
5916 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>.
5921 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5925 <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>
5931 <p>I was introduced to the
5932 <a href=
"http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project
</a>
5933 in
2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
5934 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
5935 within the legal protection of their own homes. The idea is to give
5936 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
5937 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture. Instead of
5938 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
5939 control over their own basic infrastructure.
</p>
5941 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
5942 taken priority. But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
5943 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
5944 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
5945 actually started working on the project a while back.
</p>
5947 <p>The
<a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
5948 Debian initiative
</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
5949 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
5950 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
5951 communication. The initial deployment platform have been the
5952 <a href=
"http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug
</a>,
5953 which is a piece of hardware I do not own. So to be able to test what
5954 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
5955 it on some hardware I do have access to. I have rewritten the
5956 <a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker
</a>
5957 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
5958 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
5959 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
5960 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
5961 missing in Debian).
</p>
5963 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
5965 (
<a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup
</a>),
5966 and a administrative web interface
5967 (
<a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth
</a> + exmachina +
5968 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
5969 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy
</a>
5970 (freedombox-privoxy). There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
5971 client (
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat
</a>)
5972 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
5973 (
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd
</a>). The
5974 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
5975 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc. Not much of
5976 this is really working yet, see
5977 <a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
5978 project TODO
</a> for links to GIT repositories. Most of the code is
5979 on github at the moment. The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
5980 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
5981 users. I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
5982 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
5983 with lots of half baked features.
</p>
5985 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
5986 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
5989 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64
</strong></p>
5993 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.
</li>
5994 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.
</li>
5995 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
5996 to the Debian installer:
<p>
5997 <pre>url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat
</a></pre></li>
5999 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
6002 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
6003 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.
</li>
6007 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian
</strong></p>
6011 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.
</li>
6012 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.
</li>
6013 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:
</p>
6015 deb
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox
</a> wheezy main
6017 <li><p>Run this as root:
</p>
6019 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
6022 apt-get install freedombox-setup
6023 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
6025 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.
</li>
6029 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
6030 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
6031 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
6032 in my APT repository. But do not let this stop you. It is only a
6033 short "
<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy
</tt>" away. :)</p>
6035 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
6036 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
6037 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
6038 disable
</tt>" as root.</p>
6040 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
6041 problems. We gather on the IRC channel
6042 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:
6667/%
23freedombox
">#freedombox</a> on
6043 irc.debian.org and the
6044 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
">project
6045 mailing list</a>.</p>
6047 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
6048 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
6049 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
6050 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
6051 to look at the rest of plinth. The default user is 'admin' and the
6052 default password is 'secret'.</p>
6058 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>.
6063 <div class="padding
"></div>
6067 <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>
6073 <p>Earlier, I reported about
6074 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html
">my
6075 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>. Friday I was
6076 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away. And as
6077 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
6078 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
6079 currently on the disk.</p>
6081 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
6082 <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>
6083 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
6084 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
6085 disks. I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
6086 booted the ISO from a USB stick. The disk was recognized, but the
6087 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
6088 to insert any Intel firmware. So no change, and the disk is still
6089 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
6090 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware. No idea how likely
6091 that is. Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness. I
6092 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
6093 the broken disks.</p>
6099 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>.
6104 <div class="padding
"></div>
6108 <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>
6114 <p>Today I switched to
6115 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html
">my
6116 new laptop</a>. I've previously written about the problems I had with
6117 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
6118 <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
6119 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
6120 sustained writes. My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
6121 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
6122 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
6123 disk instead to fix it once and for all. The Samsung disk survived
6124 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
6125 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
6126 decided to trust it with my data. I have installed it as a Debian Edu
6127 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
6128 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
6129 station from now on.</p>
6131 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
6132 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
6133 performance and increase life time of the disk. The Linux kernel and
6134 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
6135 environment. To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
6136 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning. The
6137 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git
">source
6138 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
6139 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
6140 package. If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
6141 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
6142 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
6144 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
6145 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD. It is adjusted to my use case,
6146 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
6147 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
6148 top of this again. See the README file in the package source for the
6149 references I used to pick the settings. At the moment these
6150 parameters are tuned:</p>
6154 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
6155 (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
6157 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
6158 this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
6159 0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
6161 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
6164 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
6167 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
6169 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
6172 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
6173 to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
6177 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
6178 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
6179 little gain. My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
6180 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
6181 computer. I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
6182 from getting the data on the disk (see
6183 <a href="http://xkcd.com/
538/
">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
6184 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
6185 right thing to do.</p>
6187 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
6188 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
6189 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
6191 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
6192 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
6193 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
6194 instead of during my work.</p>
6196 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
6197 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
6199 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning. I expect
6200 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
6201 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
6203 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
6206 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
6207 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
6208 disk. It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
6209 the Lenovo firmware. But I have not tried and did not want to do so
6210 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
6211 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
6218 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>.
6223 <div class="padding
"></div>
6227 <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>
6233 <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
6234 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html
">the
6235 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
6236 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
6237 sustained write. My supplier is in contact with
6238 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/
">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
6239 replacement disk to try to fix the problem. They decided to send an
6240 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
6242 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
6243 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it. The new disk have the
6244 same firmware version as the original. This time my hope raised
6245 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
6246 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
6247 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%. But around 60%, the disk
6248 died again and I was back on square one. I still do not have a new
6249 laptop with a disk I can trust. I can not live with a disk that might
6250 lock up when I download a new
6251 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
6252 other large files. I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
6253 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
6255 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
6256 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
6257 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
6258 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
6259 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD
180G
5V
1A, ASM P/N
0C38732, FRU
6260 P/N
45N8295, P0C38732.
</p>
6262 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD
520 Series
180 GB,
6263 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-
302, FW:
6264 LF1i,
22APR2013, PBA: G39779-
300, LBA
351,
651,
888, LI P/N:
0C38722,
6265 Pb-free
2LI, LC P/N:
16-
200366, WWN:
55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
6266 SSDSC2BW180A3L
2.5"
6Gb/s SATA SSD
180G
5V
1A, ASM P/N
0C38732, FRU
6267 P/N
45N8295, P0C38732.
</p>
6269 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
6270 SA, date and WNPP values. Mentioning all the details here in case
6271 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
6272 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
6279 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>.
6284 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6288 <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>
6294 <p>The upcoming Saturday,
2013-
07-
13, we are organising a combined
6295 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
6296 party in Oslo. It is organised by
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/">the
6297 member assosiation NUUG
</a> and
6298 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6299 project
</a> together with
<a href=
"http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
6302 <p>It starts
10:
00 and continue until late evening. Everyone is
6303 welcome, and there is no fee to participate. There is on the other
6304 hand limited space, and only room for
30 people. Please put your name
6305 on
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
6306 wiki page
</a> if you plan to join us.
</p>
6312 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>.
6317 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6321 <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>
6327 <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
6328 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
6329 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41
</a>. Unfortunately I did not have much
6330 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
6331 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived. I
6333 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230
</a>
6334 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
6335 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly. But my
6336 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful. More
6339 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
6340 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
6341 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
6342 feature at
<a href=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt
</a>, which
6343 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
6344 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
6345 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
6346 disks from my search parameters. I also asked around among friends to
6347 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.
</p>
6349 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
6350 X41. I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
6351 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
6352 hand a lot more to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly
6353 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
6354 I will get used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
6355 needed a new laptop now. :)
</p>
6357 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple. All it took was a quick
6358 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.
</p>
6360 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop. The
180 GB SSD disk
6361 lock up during load. And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
6362 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
6363 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
6364 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
6365 default in Ubuntu). And the bug with is already known. It was
6366 reported to Debian as
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
6367 report #
691427 2012-
10-
25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
6368 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD). It is also reported to the Linux
6369 kernel developers as
6370 <a href=
"https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
6371 report #
51861 2012-
12-
20</a> (Intel SSD
520 stops working under load
6372 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
6373 Lenovo forums, both for
6374 <a href=
"http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
6375 2012-
11-
10</a> and for
6376 <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
6377 03-
20-
2013</a>. The problem do not only affect installation. The
6378 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
6379 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
6380 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
6382 <a href=
"https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
6383 available
</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
6384 minutes by writing to a file.
</p>
6386 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
6387 contacting PCHELP Norway (request
01D1FDP) which handle support
6388 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
6389 firmware. Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
6390 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i). I
6391 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
6398 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>.
6403 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6407 <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>
6413 <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
6414 trusty old Thinkpad X41. Unfortunately I did not have much time to
6415 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived. I ended up
6416 picking a
<a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
6417 X230
</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu
6418 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly. As I write
6419 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
6420 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
6421 with an expencive door stop.
</p>
6423 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
6424 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
6425 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
6426 feature at
<ahref=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt
</a>, which
6427 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
6428 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
6429 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.
</p>
6431 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
6432 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
6433 to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly good and the
6434 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
6435 used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
6436 new laptop now. :)
</p>
6438 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.
</p>
6444 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>.
6449 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6453 <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>
6459 <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
6460 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
6461 working. One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
6462 needed to get the hardware on my computer working. Most often this
6463 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
6464 controller or the ethernet card. Today I pushed version
0.4 of the
6465 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package
</a>
6466 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
6467 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
6468 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
6469 debian packages. Here is a test run on my laptop:
</p>
6472 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
6473 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
6474 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
6475 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
6476 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
6477 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
6480 Preconfiguring packages ...
6481 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
6482 (Reading database ...
259727 files and directories currently installed.)
6483 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
6484 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (
0.28+squeeze1) ...
6488 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
6489 printed instead:
</p>
6492 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
6493 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules. exiting
6497 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
6498 me some time when setting up new machines. :)
</p>
6500 <p>So, how does it work? It look at the set of currently loaded
6501 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
6502 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information. Next, it
6503 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
6504 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
6505 requested firmware file. If the package is in the non-free section, a
6506 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
6507 <tt>apt-get install
</tt>. The end result is a slightly better working
6510 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
6511 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
6512 finally fix
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
6513 #
655507</a>. There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
6514 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
6515 from the nearby Debian mirror.
</p>
6521 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>.
6526 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6530 <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>
6536 <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
6537 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
6538 or on first boot from the hard disk. I've seen it once in a while the
6539 last few years, but only recently understood the cause. I've seen it
6540 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
6541 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops. The system to
6542 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
6543 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead. I do
6544 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
6545 i915 driver used by the
6546 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
6547 EasyNote LV
</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.
</p>
6549 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways. Either by adding
6550 i915.invert_brightness=
1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
6551 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=
1
6552 option when it load the i915 kernel module. On Debian and Ubuntu, it
6553 can be done by running these commands as root:
</p>
6556 echo options i915 invert_brightness=
1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
6557 update-initramfs -u -k all
6560 <p>Since March
2012 there is
6561 <a href=
"http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
6562 mechanism in the Linux kernel
</a> to tell the i915 driver which
6563 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
6564 brightness setting automatically. To use it, one need to add a row in
6565 <a href=
"http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
6566 intel_quirks array
</a> in the driver source
6567 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c
</tt> (look for "
<tt>static
6568 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks
</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
6569 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
6572 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
6573 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
6576 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
6577 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
6578 (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
6579 Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
6580 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
6581 ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
6582 Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
6583 <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
6585 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
6586 Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
6587 Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
6588 Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
6589 Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
6590 Capabilities: <access denied>
6591 Kernel driver in use: i915
6594 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
6597 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
6599 /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
6600 { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
6605 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
6606 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
6607 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
6608 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel
">dri-devel
6609 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
6610 developers. But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
6612 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/
2013-June/thread.html
">the
6613 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
6614 emails from non-subscribers. Because of this, I sent my patch also to
6615 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
6616 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
6617 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
6619 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
6620 with this problem working properly with Linux. If you use Gnome, your
6621 worries should be over at this point. But if you use KDE, there is
6622 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
6623 the screen during login. I've reported it to Debian as
6624 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
6625 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
6626 this. Perhaps you can help? Perhaps you know what the Gnome
6627 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
6628 developers? Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
6629 during login? If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
6630 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
6632 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
6633 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
6634 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
6635 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
6642 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>.
6647 <div class="padding
"></div>
6651 <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>
6657 <p>Two days ago, I asked
6658 <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
6659 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
6660 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>. I found a solution, but am horrified
6661 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
6664 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
6665 secure booting or fast boot. I suspect fast boot was the problem,
6666 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
6667 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
6670 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
6671 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive! This is as far as I
6672 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
6673 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement. I am told (and
6674 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
6675 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8. But as I believe the terms
6676 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
6677 was never an alternative. I do not enter agreements I do not intend
6680 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
6681 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
6682 work. But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
6683 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops. Is
6684 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
6685 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
6686 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms? Or at least not
6687 without risking to loose the warranty?
</p>
6690 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
6691 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV
</a>, to ensure the next person
6692 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
6695 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
6696 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.
</p>
6702 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>.
6707 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6711 <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>
6717 <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days. I bought three
6718 new laptops for my parents and a few others. I bought Packard Bell
6719 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer. But I
6720 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it. The
6721 computer is preinstalled with Windows
8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
6722 instead of a BIOS to boot.
</p>
6724 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
6725 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick. I have yet
6726 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work. when I turn on
6727 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
6728 the normal boot menu. I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
6729 USB stick booting. When booting, it first ask for the language to
6730 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
6731 Windows
8 terms of use. As these terms are completely unacceptable to
6732 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
6733 to get it to boot the Linux installer.
</p>
6735 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
6736 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
6737 EasyNote LV
</a> model. If you have any idea how to get Linux
6738 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
6739 page. If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
6740 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.
</p>
6742 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
6743 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
6750 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>.
6755 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6759 <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>
6765 <p><a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a> is
6766 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools. It
6767 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
6768 pupils in the primary schools. It provide both the central server,
6769 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
6770 educational software. The project was founded almost
12 years ago,
6771 2001-
07-
02. If you want to support the project, which is in need for
6772 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
6773 <a href=
"http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
6774 donate some money
</a>.
6776 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
6777 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
6778 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation. It isn't very
6779 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
6780 the Debian Edu installer.
</p>
6783 <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/>
6784 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
6785 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
6786 into a Debian Edu Workstation:
</p>
6790 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.
</li>
6791 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.
</li>
6792 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
6793 our configuration.
</li>
6794 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
6795 /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
6796 according to the profile specified in the config above,
6797 overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.
</li>
6798 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
6799 that could not be done using preseeding.
</li>
6800 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.
</li>
6804 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
6805 replicated like this. Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
6806 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
6807 the needed packages.
</p>
6809 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
6810 setting up
<a href=
"http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi
</a> as a
6811 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
6812 <a href=
"http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage">Raspbian
</a> installation and
6813 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
6814 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).
</p>
6816 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
6817 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
6818 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:
</p>
6821 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
6825 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
6826 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
6827 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
6834 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>.
6839 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6843 <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>
6850 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
6851 announced a
</a> new
<a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
6852 channel #debian-lego
</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
6853 community interested in
<a href=
"http://www.lego.com/">LEGO
</a>, the
6854 marvellous construction system from Denmark. We also created
6855 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page
</a> to have
6856 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes. And several
6857 people showed up to help. I was very happy to see the effect of my
6858 call. Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
6859 <a href=
"http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego
</a>
6860 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count
10 packages related to
6861 LEGO and
<a href=
"http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms
</a>:
</p>
6864 <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>
6865 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad
</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software
</td></tr>
6866 <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>
6867 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd
</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS
</td></tr>
6868 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc
</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
</td></tr>
6869 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc
</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX
</td></tr>
6870 <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>
6871 <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>
6872 <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>
6873 <tr><td><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n
</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
</td></tr>
6876 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
6877 currently available in Jessie/testing. leocad is so far only
6878 available in experimental.
</p>
6880 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
6881 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
6882 for LEGO designers.
</p>
6888 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>.
6893 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6897 <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>
6903 <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
6904 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
6905 for Debian Wheezy
</a> was waiting in my mail box. This is a great
6906 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
6909 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
6910 in particular make me very happy to see included. The
6911 <a href=
"http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch
</a> program, made famous by
6912 the
<a href=
"http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code
</a> movement, is
6913 included for the first time. Alongside similar programs like
6914 <a href=
"http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle
</a> and
6915 <a href=
"http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart
</a>,
6916 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
6917 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
6918 computer. Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
6921 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
6922 Edu/Skolelinux release too. The
6923 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
6924 alpha release
</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
6931 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>.
6936 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6940 <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>
6946 <p>Today the
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
6947 package
</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
6948 for many months. I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
6949 2013-
01-
27, and today it was accepted into the archive.
</p>
6951 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
6952 install to work with a pluggable hardware device. The suggestion pop
6953 up when the device is plugged in. For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
6954 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
6955 the NXT controller. Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
6962 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>.
6967 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6971 <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>
6978 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
6979 bitcoin related blog post
</a> mentioned that the new
6980 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package
</a> for
6981 Debian was waiting in NEW. It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
6982 2013-
01-
19, and have been available in unstable since then. It was
6983 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
6986 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
6987 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
6988 architectures. For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
6989 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
6990 architectures (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #
672524</a>).
6991 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
6992 no-one have been able to propose a fix. If you got an idea what is
6993 failing, please let us know via the BTS.
</p>
6995 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
6996 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
6997 if it run short on space (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
6998 #
696715</a>). So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
7001 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
7002 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
7003 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
7009 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>.
7014 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7018 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!
</a>
7025 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
7026 for testers
</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
7027 pluggable hardware devices, which I
7028 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
7029 out to create
</a> earlier this month. Several valuable testers showed
7030 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
7031 people. But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
7032 for this project. Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
7033 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name. In the
7034 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
7035 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint
</a>
7036 repository in Debian. The new name? It is
<strong>Isenkram
</strong>.
7037 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use
</p>
7040 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
7041 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
7044 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet. If you
7045 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
7046 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
7047 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)
</p>
7049 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
7050 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc. Typical hardware
7051 stuff, in other words. I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
7052 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
7055 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
7056 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
7059 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
7060 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.
</p>
7066 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>.
7071 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7075 <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>
7081 <p>Early this month I set out to try to
7082 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
7083 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices
</a>. Now my
7084 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience. To test
7086 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
7087 from the Debian Edu subversion repository
</a>, build and install the
7088 package. You might have to log out and in again activate the
7089 autostart script.
</p>
7091 <p>The design is simple:
</p>
7095 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
7096 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.
</li>
7098 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
7099 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
7102 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
7103 the APT database, a database
7104 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
7105 via HTTP
</a> and a database available as part of the package.
</li>
7107 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
7108 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
7109 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
7110 package or packages.
</li>
7112 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
7113 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.
</li>
7115 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
7116 package while showing progress information in a window.
</li>
7120 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system. Here
7121 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action. First the
7122 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
7123 approve all the dependencies. Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.
</p>
7125 <p><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
7126 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
7127 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
7128 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
7129 <br><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width=
"70%"></p>
7131 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
7132 is already useful. The database of hardware to package mappings also
7133 need more work. It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
7134 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
7135 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
7136 method. I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
7137 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
7138 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.
</p>
7140 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
21 16:
50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
7141 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
7143 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
7144 hw-support-handler; debuild
</tt>'. If you lack debuild, install the
7145 devscripts package.
</p>
7147 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
23 12:
00</strong>: The project is now
7148 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
7149 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository. See
7150 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
7151 instructions
</a> for details.
</p>
7157 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>.
7162 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7166 <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>
7172 <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died. It died quietly and
7173 suddenly in bed. With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
7174 black. The power button was no longer able to turn it on. It was a
7175 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had. Better than both
7176 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S. Far better than the
7177 Compaq I had before that. Now I need to find a replacement. To keep
7178 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
7179 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
7180 not a durable solution.
7182 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest. This is my wishlist from when I
7183 got a new one more than
10 years ago. It still holds true.:)
</p>
7187 <li>Lightweight (around
1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
7189 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.
</li>
7190 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.
</li>
7191 <li>Long battery life time. Preferable a week.
</li>
7192 <li>Internal WIFI network card.
</li>
7193 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.
</li>
7194 <li>Some USB slots (
2-
3 is plenty)
</li>
7195 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.
</li>
7196 <li>Video resolution at least
1024x768, with size around
12" (A4 paper
7198 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
7199 X.org packages.
</li>
7200 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
7205 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
7206 list. The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
7207 last
10-
15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
7208 at other features to choose my laptop. But are there still made as
7209 robust laptops as my X41? The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
7210 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
7211 Lenovo took over. But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
7212 still be useful.
</p>
7214 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
7215 external keyboard? I'll have to check the
7216 <a href=
"http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site
</a> for
7217 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
7218 of the vendors listed on the
<a href=
"http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
7219 Pre-loaded site
</a>.
</p>
7225 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>.
7230 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7234 <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>
7240 <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
7241 install to get support for a given MIME type. Thanks to
7242 <a href=
"https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
7243 done by Ubuntu
</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
7244 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
7245 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
7246 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:
</p>
7252 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
7257 version = pkg.candidate
7259 version = pkg.installed
7262 record = version.record
7263 if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
7265 mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
7266 for t in mime_types:
7267 t = t.rstrip().strip()
7269 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
7271 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
7272 if
1 < len(sys.argv):
7273 mimetype = sys.argv[
1]
7274 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
7275 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
7279 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:
</p>
7282 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
7283 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
7285 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
7286 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
7287 browser-plugin-gnash
7291 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
7292 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
7293 packages. It would be great if Debian supported such feature too. Is
7294 anyone working on adding it?
</p>
7296 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
18 14:
20</strong>: The Debian BTS
7297 request for icweasel support for this feature is
7298 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#
484010</a> from
2008 (and
7299 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#
698426</a> from today). Lack
7300 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
7301 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.
</p>
7307 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>.
7312 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7316 <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>
7322 <p>The
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-
11
7323 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive
</a>, is a
7324 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
7325 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
7326 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing. With such
7327 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
7328 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
7329 downloaded by the browser.
</p>
7331 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
7332 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
7333 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there. The result
7335 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
7336 site
</a>. Using the collected information, it become possible to
7337 answer the question in the title. Here are the
20 most supported MIME
7338 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
7339 The complete list is available from the link above.
</p>
7341 <p><strong>Debian Stable:
</strong></p>
7345 ----- -----------------------
7361 18 application/x-ogg
7368 <p><strong>Debian Testing:
</strong></p>
7372 ----- -----------------------
7388 18 application/x-ogg
7395 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:
</strong></p>
7399 ----- -----------------------
7416 18 application/x-ogg
7422 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
7423 information mentioned in DEP-
11. I have not yet had time to look at
7424 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
7427 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
16 13:
35</strong>: Updated numbers after
7428 discovering a typo in my script.
</p>
7434 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>.
7439 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7443 <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>
7449 <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
7450 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
7451 values provided by the Linux kernel
</a> following my hope for
7452 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
7453 dongle support in Debian
</a>. Using this knowledge, I have tested how
7454 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
7455 to hardware. This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
7456 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
7457 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
7460 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
7461 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
7462 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
7466 Package: package-name
7467 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)
</p>
7470 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
7471 for a given modalias value using this file.
</p>
7473 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
7474 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class
0E01):
</p>
7478 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)
</p>
7481 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
7482 CardBus bridge (bus class
0607) PCI device is present:
</p>
7485 Package: pcmciautils
7486 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
7489 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
7490 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs
04D8:F8DA:
</p>
7493 Package: colorhug-client
7494 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)
</p>
7497 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
7498 file in the Debian archive. Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
7499 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.
</p>
7501 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
7502 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
7503 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
7504 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
7505 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information. I've
7506 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
7507 is working as it should with my prototype. It even made it to Ubuntu
7510 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
7511 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
7512 implementation of the lookup code. The idea is to create files for
7513 each modalias and let the shell do the matching. Please check out and
7515 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup
</a>
7516 shell script. It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
7517 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
7518 repository where I currently work on my prototype.
</p>
7520 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
7521 install yubikey-personalization:
</p>
7524 % ./hw-support-lookup
7525 <br>yubikey-personalization
7529 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
7530 propose to install the pcmciautils package:
</p>
7533 % ./hw-support-lookup
7538 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
7539 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
7540 database
</a>, please tell me about it.
</p>
7542 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
7543 packages and hardware. One source would be to look at packages with
7544 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
7545 extract their modalias information. Another would be to look at
7546 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
7547 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
7548 generate a modalias matching rule. I have not tested any of these to
7551 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
7552 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
7553 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
7554 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
7560 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>.
7565 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7569 <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>
7575 <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
7576 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
7577 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
7578 to document the details. Here are my findings so far, also available
7580 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
7581 Debian Edu subversion repository
</a>:
7583 <p><strong>Modalias decoded
</strong></p>
7585 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
7586 values stands for. It is in part based on information from
7587 <URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias
</a> >,
7588 <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> >,
7589 <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> > and
7590 <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> >.
7592 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
7593 this shell script:
</p>
7596 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u
7599 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
7603 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
7604 alias: serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
7605 alias: serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
7609 <p><strong>PCI subtype
</strong></p>
7611 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this. This is an Intel Host
7612 Bridge memory controller:
</p>
7615 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
7618 <p>This represent these values:
</p>
7623 sv
00001028 (subvendor)
7624 sd
000001AD (subdevice)
7626 sc
00 (bus subclass)
7630 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
7631 -n' as
8086:
2770. The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
7632 0600. The
0600 class is a host bridge. Other useful bus values are
7633 0300 (VGA compatible card) and
0200 (Ethernet controller).
</p>
7635 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
7638 <p><strong>USB subtype
</strong></p>
7640 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this. This is an internal
7641 USB hub in a laptop:
</p>
7644 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
7647 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:
</p>
7650 v
1D6B (device vendor)
7651 p
0001 (device product)
7653 dc
09 (device class)
7654 dsc
00 (device subclass)
7655 dp
00 (device protocol)
7656 ic
09 (interface class)
7657 isc
00 (interface subclass)
7658 ip
00 (interface protocol)
7661 <p>The
0900 device class/subclass means hub. Some times the relevant
7662 class is in the interface class section. For a simple USB web camera,
7663 these alias entries show up:
</p>
7666 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
7667 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
7668 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
7669 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
7672 <p>Interface class
0E01 is video control,
0E02 is video streaming (aka
7673 camera),
0101 is audio control device and
0102 is audio streaming (aka
7674 microphone). Thus this is a camera with microphone included.
</p>
7676 <p><strong>ACPI subtype
</strong></p>
7678 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff. This is an IR
7679 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:
</p>
7682 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
7685 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.
</p>
7687 <p><strong>DMI subtype
</strong></p>
7689 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
7690 and model. This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
7691 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:
</p>
7694 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(
1.66):bd06/
15/
2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
7697 <p>The values present are
</p>
7700 bvn IBM (BIOS vendor)
7701 bvr
1UETB
6WW(
1.66) (BIOS version)
7702 bd
06/
15/
2005 (BIOS date)
7703 svn IBM (system vendor)
7704 pn
2371H4G (product name)
7705 pvr ThinkPadX40 (product version)
7706 rvn IBM (board vendor)
7707 rn
2371H4G (board name)
7708 rvr NotAvailable (board version)
7709 cvn IBM (chassis vendor)
7710 ct
10 (chassis type)
7711 cvr NotAvailable (chassis version)
7714 <p>The chassis type
10 is Notebook. Other interesting values can be
7715 found in the dmidecode source:
</p>
7719 4 Low Profile Desktop
7732 17 Main Server Chassis
7733 18 Expansion Chassis
7735 20 Bus Expansion Chassis
7736 21 Peripheral Chassis
7738 23 Rack Mount Chassis
7747 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
7748 table. For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
7749 claim it is a desktop.
</p>
7751 <p><strong>SerIO subtype
</strong></p>
7753 <p>This type is used for PS/
2 mouse plugs. One example is from my
7757 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
7760 <p>The values present are
</p>
7769 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver. I am not sure what
7770 the valid values are.
</p>
7772 <p><strong>Other subtypes
</strong></p>
7774 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
7775 file2alias.c. There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
7776 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
7777 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
7778 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro. I did not spend time documenting all of
7779 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
7780 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.
</p>
7782 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values
</strong></p>
7784 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
7785 one can use the following shell script:
</p>
7788 for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u); do \
7790 /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/ /' ; \
7794 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
7795 list is very long on my test machine):
</p>
7799 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
7801 FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
7803 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
7804 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
7805 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
7806 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
7807 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
7808 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
7809 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
7810 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
7814 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
7815 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
7816 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
7817 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
7819 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
15:
</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
7820 "find ... -print0 | xargs -
0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
7821 in /sys/ with space in them.
</p>
7827 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>.
7832 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7836 <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>
7842 <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
7843 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
7844 Launcher and updated the Debian package
7845 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile
</a> to make
7846 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in. I
7847 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
7848 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
7849 plug in his rocket launcher. In the process I moved the source to a
7850 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
7851 contribute.
<a href=
"http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream
</a>
7852 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
7853 years of relative silence. The new git repository is not listed in
7854 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
7855 bit more before I upload the new version. If you want to check out
7856 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
7857 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
7858 view
</a> or use "
<tt>git clone
7859 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git
</tt>".</p>
7865 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>.
7870 <div class="padding
"></div>
7874 <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>
7880 <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
7881 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
7882 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
7883 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
7884 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
7885 machine. Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
7886 Linux distribution. When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
7887 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
7888 I need to talk to it. When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
7889 yubikey-personalization package. The information required to do this
7890 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
7892 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
7893 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
05/msg01206.html
">use
7894 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>. The idea is fairly
7899 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
7900 starting when a user log in.</li>
7902 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
7903 hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
7905 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
7906 database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
7909 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
7910 package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
7914 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
7915 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
7916 discover database to find packages and
7917 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/
">PackageKit</a> to install
7920 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
7921 draft package is now checked into
7922 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/
">the
7923 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>. In the process, I updated the
7924 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html
">discover-data</a>
7925 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
7926 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
7927 2.2013.01.09 to unstable. I also discovered that the current
7928 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html
">discover</a>
7929 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
7930 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present. I ported it to use
7931 libusb as a fall back option to get it working. The fixed package
7932 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
7933 because of the freeze).</p>
7935 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
7936 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
7939 <p align="center
"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2013-
01-
09-hw-autoinstall.png
"></p>
7941 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
7942 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
7943 program(s)" button should to be implemented.
</p>
7945 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
7946 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
7947 from hardware to Debian packages. Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
7948 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
7949 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
7950 reportbug if it isn't. Or, if you know of a better way to provide
7951 such mapping, please let me know.
</p>
7953 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
7954 should be considered before it is ready for production use. Is dbus
7955 the correct way to detect new hardware? At the moment I look for HAL
7956 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
7957 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop. Are there better events to use?
7958 How should the user be notified? Is the desktop notification
7959 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
7960 popup instead? How should packages be installed? When should they
7961 not be installed?
</p>
7963 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
7964 please send me an email. :)
</p>
7970 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>.
7975 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7979 <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>
7985 <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
7986 <a href=
"http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
7987 NXT
</a>. My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
7988 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
7989 already in Debian Squeeze. If Debian support for LEGO is something
7990 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
7991 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego
</a> (server
7992 irc.debian.org). There is a lot that could be done to improve the
7993 Debian support for LEGO designers. For example both CAD software
7994 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)
</p>
7996 <p>Update
2012-
01-
03: A
7997 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page
</a>
7998 including links to Lego related packages is now available.
</p>
8004 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>.
8009 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8013 <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>
8019 <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
8020 year! I hope next year will prove to be a good year.
</p>
8022 <p><a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin
</a>, the digital
8023 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
8024 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
8025 experiment. And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
8026 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a> is about to improve a bit.
8027 The
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
8028 package
</a> (version
0.7.2-
2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
8029 in
<a href=
"http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue
</A>
8030 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
8033 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
8034 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
8035 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:
</p>
8038 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
8040 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=
1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
8041 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
8044 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well. The
8045 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
8046 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment. Note that the
8047 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
8048 around
5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment. Make sure your
8049 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
8050 all the blocks. The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
8051 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
8052 not be able to get all the features out of the client.
</p>
8054 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
8055 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
8056 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
8062 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>.
8067 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8071 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian
</a>
8077 <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
8078 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin
</a>, the decentralised
8079 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
8080 have been busy elsewhere. But two days ago, I started looking at the
8081 state of
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
8082 Debian
</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet. The package
8083 is now maintained by a
8084 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
8085 people
</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team. We
8086 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
8087 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
8088 Wheezy. It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
8089 backports). The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
8090 it from entering testing. To try to help the team and improve the
8091 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
8092 reports. I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
8094 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
8095 Ubuntu
</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
8098 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
8099 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
8100 improve the package. It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
8101 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
8102 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
8103 setup. As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
8104 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
8105 patch to backport
</a> the latest version. Jonas is going to look at
8106 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
8107 new version to unstable.
8109 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
8110 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system. I
8111 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
8112 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
8113 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
8114 transactions to Wikileaks. But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
8115 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
8116 they sell products and services. Improving the bitcoin support in
8117 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
8118 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
8119 pay with bitcoin is still not very good. The bitcoin: URI is a step
8120 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
8121 use. Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
8122 quick transaction. I believe there are other clients available, but
8123 have not tested them.
</p>
8126 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
8127 with bitcoins
</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
8128 I received
20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
8129 years ago, as can be
8130 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
8131 on the blockexplorer service
</a>. Thank you everyone for your
8132 donation. The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
8133 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
8134 number of users have gone up since then. If you use bitcoin and want
8135 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
8136 the same address as last time,
8137 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
8143 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>.
8148 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8152 <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>
8159 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
8160 this summer
</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
8161 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
8162 <a href=
"https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
8163 repository for the project
</a>.
</p>
8165 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
8166 to the HTML version. To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
8167 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
8168 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.
</p>
8170 <p>Want to sing? You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
8171 PostScript formats at
8172 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
8173 Science Songbook
</a>.
</p>
8179 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>.
8184 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8188 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med
19-årsdagen, Debian!
</a>
8195 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet
19
8196 år
</a>. Jeg har fulgt det de siste
12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
8197 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!
</p>
8203 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>.
8208 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8212 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists
</a>
8218 <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
8219 <a href=
"http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø
</a>, I started
8220 collecting computer related songs for use at parties. The original
8221 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
8222 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
8223 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format. I have
8224 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
8225 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
8226 help me extend and update the book. If anyone is volunteering to help
8227 me with this, send me an email. Also let me know if there are songs
8228 missing in my book.
</p>
8230 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
8231 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
8232 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
8233 Especially now that
<a href=
"http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
8234 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going). Want to sing? Check
8235 out
<a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
8236 Computer Science Songbook
</a>.
8242 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>.
8247 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8251 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge
</a>
8257 <p>At work we have heaps of servers. I believe the total count is
8258 around
1000 at the moment. To be able to get help from the vendors
8259 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
8260 up to date. If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
8261 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
8262 firmware is upgraded. So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
8263 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
8264 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
8265 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
8266 the tools to do so.
</p>
8268 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
8269 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got. Most of
8270 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
8271 so far. This blog post is about the Dell part.
</P>
8273 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
8274 <a href=
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file
</a>
8275 with firmware information for all
11th generation servers, listing
8276 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
8277 site I can find it. Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
8278 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
8279 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
8280 be activated on the first reboot.
</p>
8282 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
8283 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
8284 servers at a site? Please get in touch and lets share resources.
</p>
8290 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
8292 # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
8294 'XML::Simple' =
> 'perl-XML-Simple',
8296 for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
8297 eval "use $module;";
8299 my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
8300 system("yum install -y $pkg");
8301 eval "use $module;";
8305 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
8311 sub run_firmware_script {
8312 my ($opts, $script) = @_;
8314 print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
8317 print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
8319 if (
0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
8320 print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
8322 print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
8326 sub run_firmware_scripts {
8327 my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
8328 # Run firmware packages
8329 for my $dir (@dirs) {
8330 print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
8331 opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
8332 while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
8333 next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
8334 run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
8342 print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
8343 system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
8348 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
8351 if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
8353 # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
8354 system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-
33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
8356 my $tmpdir = tempdir(
8360 fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
8361 system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
8362 my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
8363 # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
8366 for my $url (@paths) {
8367 fetch_dell_fw($url);
8369 run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
8371 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
8372 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
8376 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
8377 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
8383 my $url =
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
8387 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
8388 # firmware packages to download from Dell. Only work for Linux
8389 # machines and
11th generation Dell servers.
8390 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
8391 my $filename = shift;
8393 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
8395 my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
8397 print STDERR
"Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
8399 my $xml = XMLin($filename);
8401 for my $bundle (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareBundle}}) {
8402 my $brand = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
8403 my $model = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Model}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
8405 if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}) {
8406 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}[
0]-
>{osCode};
8408 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}-
>{osCode};
8410 if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
8412 @paths = map { $_-
>{path} } @{$bundle-
>{Contents}-
>{Package}};
8415 for my $component (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareComponent}}) {
8416 my $componenttype = $component-
>{ComponentType}-
>{value};
8418 # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
8419 next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
8421 my $cpath = $component-
>{path};
8422 for my $path (@paths) {
8423 if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
8424 push(@paths, $cpath);
8432 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
8433 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking. Anyone know a
8434 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers? At the
8435 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
8442 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>.
8447 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8451 <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>
8457 <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
8458 <a href=
"http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
8459 comments and opinions
</a> on my blog post on
8460 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
8461 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian
</a> and my blog post about
8462 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
8463 default KDE desktop in Debian
</a>. I only have time to address one
8464 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
8465 misunderstanding he bring forward:
</p>
8468 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
8469 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
8470 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
8473 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
8474 and booting into runlevel
1 is the same. I am not surprised he
8475 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
8476 thing to believe. But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
8477 runlevel
1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
8478 mode. I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
8479 hard to explain.
</p>
8481 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
8482 "
<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin
</tt>". This means the only thing that is
8483 executed in single user mode is sulogin. Single user mode is a boot
8484 state "between
" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
8485 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
8486 enters the single user state. When switching to runlevel 1, the state
8487 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
8488 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
8489 runs "init -t1 S
" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
8490 1. It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
8491 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
8494 <p>This summary might make it clearer. When booting for the first
8495 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
8496 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin
</tt>". When booting into
8497 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
8498 S; /etc/init.d/rc
1; /sbin/sulogin
</tt>". A problem show up when
8499 trying to continue after visiting single user mode. Not all services
8500 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
8501 unpredicatble state. This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
8502 after visiting single user mode.</p>
8504 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
8505 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/. When switching from say runlevel 2
8506 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
8507 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
8508 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
8509 2-5. I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
8510 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
8511 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
8513 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
8514 and discovered this problem a few years ago. I suspect it originates
8515 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
8521 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>.
8526 <div class="padding
"></div>
8530 <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>
8536 <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
8537 are started from /etc/rcS.d/. In fact, there is a bite more of them
8538 than make sense, and this causes a few problems. What kind of
8539 problems, you might ask. There are at least two problems. The first
8540 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
8541 runlevel 1. One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
8542 the expected state. The other is that single user boot will sometimes
8543 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
8544 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
8545 machine from a problem in that subsystem. A minor additional point is
8546 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
8547 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
8548 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
8550 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/. In short, only the
8551 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
8552 presented during a single user boot should go there. Everything else
8553 should go into the numeric runlevels. This means things like
8554 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
8555 the numeric runlevels. Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
8556 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
8557 out. Do your package have one of them? Please help us make single
8558 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
8560 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
8561 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
8562 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
8565 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound. To keep
8566 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
8567 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
8568 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
8569 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
8570 moved first. This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
8571 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
8572 the system state correct. This will require some coordination when it
8573 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
8574 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
8575 on them. Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
8576 package, while others are still left to do. I wish I had time to work
8577 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
8578 find time to push this forward.</p>
8584 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>.
8589 <div class="padding
"></div>
8593 <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>
8599 <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
8600 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
8601 desktop to be useful for more people. The use case for this is my
8602 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
8605 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
8606 implement. After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
8607 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
8611 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
8612 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
8613 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
8614 tool to handle it. I have no problem guiding both of my parents
8615 through the process over the phone. If a kernel reboot is required,
8616 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool. Last
8617 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
8620 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
8621 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
8622 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
8623 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
8624 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
8625 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
8626 Packages file in the APT archive). If one or more packages are found,
8627 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
8628 type. If the package require the user to accept some non-free
8629 license, this is explained to the user. The entire process make it
8630 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
8631 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
8632 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
8634 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
8635 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
8636 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
8637 should search for a package that would add support for it. This
8638 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264. The selection
8639 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
8640 plugin handling. This is as far as I know implemented using a
8641 gstreamer hook. The end result is that the user easily get access to
8642 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
8643 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
8645 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
8646 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
8647 start emacs to show it. If I remember correctly, when doing the same
8648 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser. At least I
8649 know Opera will show text files within the browser. I much prefer the
8650 latter behaviour.</li>
8654 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
8655 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
8656 it do not matter much.</p>
8658 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
8659 Debian release. It would require the coordinated effort of several
8660 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
8666 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>.
8671 <div class="padding
"></div>
8675 <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>
8681 <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi</A>
8682 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
8683 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
8684 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
8685 security support for a few years.</p>
8687 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
8688 that are missing in Debian at the moment. It would be great if these
8689 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
8690 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com
">FixMyStreet</a> clone
8691 in their own country using only Debian packages. The list of modules
8692 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
8693 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
8694 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
8695 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
8696 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
8697 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
8698 easier in the future.</p>
8700 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
8701 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
8702 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package. But this leave me
8703 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
8704 do not have time for.</p>
8710 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>.
8715 <div class="padding
"></div>
8719 <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>
8725 <p>Here is a small update for my English readers. Most of my blog
8726 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
8727 update in English.</p>
8729 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
8730 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
8731 of the British service
8732 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/
">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
8733 and it has been running for a month now. The entire project has been
8734 organised by me and two others. Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
8735 to fund the development work. In January I drafted a contract with
8736 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/
">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
8737 and in February the development took place. Most of it involved
8738 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
8739 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
8740 running in any country by now. The Norwegian
8741 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi</a> is using
8742 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/
">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
8743 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
8744 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
8746 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
8747 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th. The system is
8748 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
8749 problem reports in a few weeks. Soon we hope to announce the Android
8750 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
8751 public infrastructure.</p>
8753 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
8760 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>.
8765 <div class="padding
"></div>
8769 <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>
8775 <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
8776 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo. My idea is that
8777 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
8778 available on the Internet, and check our locally
8779 maintained/distributed software against this information. It should
8780 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten. The
8781 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
8782 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
8783 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
8784 out which security holes were present in our free software
8787 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
8788 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
8789 consistent way across data sources. I considered several ways to do
8790 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
8791 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
8792 existing naming scheme. And it seem like I am not the first one to
8793 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
8794 solution. Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html
">Common
8795 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
8796 software, hardware and other platform components. The CPE ids are
8797 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/
">National
8798 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
8799 issues for any CPE name. With this in place, all I need to do is to
8800 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
8801 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
8802 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
8804 <p>To give you an example. The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
8805 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip. If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
8806 check out, one could look up
8807 <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
8808 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
8809 The most recent one is
8810 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-
2010-
0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
8811 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
8812 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
8814 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
8815 for offline processing of issues. Using this dump, I've written a
8816 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
8817 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs. One give it CPEs
8818 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
8819 security issues out.</p>
8821 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
8822 information need to be high. For that to happen, I believe as many as
8823 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database. I notice
8825 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt
">a
8826 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
8827 information. I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
8829 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
8830 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
8831 the CVE database in NVD. The result look fairly good, but there are
8832 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
8833 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
8834 Debian believe are affected by a CVE). Hope to find time to improve
8835 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
8836 someone maintaining it. So far my three emails with questions and
8837 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
8838 established soon.</p>
8840 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
8841 mapping. It would be useful to know which packages in for example
8842 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
8843 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
8844 for their packages.</p>
8850 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>.
8855 <div class="padding
"></div>
8859 <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>
8866 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data
">discover-data</a>
8867 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
8868 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
8869 information. One part of this script that I find very useful when
8870 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
8871 to the PCI device it claims. It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
8872 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with. To see
8873 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
8874 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>. The relevant output on
8875 one of my machines like this:</p>
8879 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
8882 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
8891 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
8892 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
8895 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
8896 echo loaded pci modules:
8898 cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
8899 for address in * ; do
8900 if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
8901 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
8902 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
8903 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
8904 id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk '{print $
3}'`
8914 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
8918 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
8919 echo loaded usb modules:
8921 cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
8922 for address in * ; do
8923 if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
8924 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
8925 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
8926 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
8927 id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk '{print $
6}')
8939 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
8946 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>.
8951 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8955 <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>
8961 <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the
<a
8962 href=
"http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo
</a> testing if the new
8963 batch of computers will work with Linux. Every year for the last few
8964 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
8965 computers, and this year HP won the bid. Two different desktops and
8966 five different laptops are on the list this year. We in the UNIX
8967 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
8968 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
8971 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
8972 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well. To test, I PXE
8973 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
8974 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware. When
8975 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
8976 on. If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
8977 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
8978 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.
</p>
8980 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post. Here is the simple tests
8981 I perform on a new model.
</p>
8985 <li>Is PXE installation working? I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
8986 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment. If I feel like it, I also test with
8987 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.
</li>
8989 <li>Is X.org working? If the graphical login screen show up after
8990 installation, X.org is working.
</li>
8992 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working? Running glxgears (in
8993 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
8994 reported by the program.
</li>
8996 <li>Is sound working? With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
8997 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful. If there
8998 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
8999 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound. I
9000 normally test this by playing
9001 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
9002 video
</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.
</li>
9004 <li>Is the USB subsystem working? I test this by plugging in a USB
9005 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li>
9007 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working? I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
9008 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li>
9010 <li>Is any built in camera working? Test using cheese, and see if a
9011 picture from the v4l device show up.
</li>
9013 <li>Is bluetooth working? Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
9014 any bluetooth devices are discovered. In my office, I normally see a
9017 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working. I have
9018 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
9021 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working? I'm testing if the
9022 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
9025 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
9026 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
9027 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc? The set of buttons differ from
9028 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
9031 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
9032 acceleration sensors etc. I rarely test these, as I do not know how
9033 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
9038 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
9039 for the HP machines I am testing. I'm not done yet, so I will report
9040 the test results later. For now I can report that HP
8100 Elite work
9041 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook
8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
9042 and audio fail on RHEL6. Ubuntu Maverik worked with
8440p. As you
9043 can see, I have most machines left to test. One interesting
9044 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
9045 RHEL6 with glxgears. No idea why.
</p>
9051 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>.
9056 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9060 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins
</a>
9066 <p>As I continue to explore
9067 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin
</a>, I've starting to wonder
9068 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
9069 and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.
</p>
9071 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
9072 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
9073 is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been
9074 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
9075 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
9076 that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for
9077 all transactions. There I can see that my address
9078 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a>
9079 have received
16.06 Bitcoin, the
9080 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv
8MHqvwst
3</a>
9081 address of Simon Phipps have received
181.97 BitCoin and the address
9082 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt
</A>
9083 of EFF have received
2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and
9084 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
9085 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
9086 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
9087 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I'm told
9088 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
9089 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
9090 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.
</p>
9092 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
9093 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
9094 without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting
9095 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
9096 If the Skolelinux foundation
9097 (
<a href=
"http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
9098 Debian Labs
</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
9099 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
9100 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
9101 not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate
9102 should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay
9103 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
9104 BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.
</p>
9106 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
9107 accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to
9108 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
9109 easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
9110 access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really
9111 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
9112 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I
9113 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
9114 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
9115 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
9116 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I'm sure they
9117 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
9118 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
9119 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
9122 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
9123 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
9124 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
9125 to see which one get the next lump of cash). The "winner" get
50
9126 BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
9127 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
9128 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
9129 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the
50
9131 <a href=
"http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool
</a>
9132 if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a
9133 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
9134 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
9137 <p>Update
2010-
12-
15: Found an
<a
9138 href=
"http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
9139 criticism
</a> of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
9140 it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be
9141 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.
</p>
9147 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>.
9152 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9156 <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>
9162 <p>With this weeks lawless
9163 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
9164 attacks
</a> on Wikileak and
9165 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
9166 speech
</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
9167 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
9169 <a href=
"http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
9170 Phipps on bitcoin
</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
9171 mine mentioned earlier. I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
9172 involved with
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin
</a>. I got
9173 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
9174 some bitcoins to get started. I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
9175 for helping me remember BitCoin.
</p>
9177 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder? It is a digital
9178 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
9179 networks. It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
9180 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
9181 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions. The
9182 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets
2.9
9183 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
9184 line client builds just fine. Hopefully Jonas
9185 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
9186 Debian
</a> soon.
</p>
9188 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
9189 There are
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
9190 bitcoins
</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
9191 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided. There
9192 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising. If you
9193 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
9195 <a href=
"https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free
</a> (
0.05
9196 bitcoin at the time of writing). Use
9197 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch
</a> to keep an eye
9198 on the current exchange rates.
</p>
9200 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
9201 machines. If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
9202 donations to the address
9203 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</b>. Thank you!
</p>
9209 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>.
9214 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9218 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?
</a>
9224 <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
9225 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
9226 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
9227 to play a video file or stream. Only if VLC fail will I drag out
9228 gmplayer to see if it can do better. The reason is mostly the failure
9229 model and trust. When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
9230 reporting the problem. When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
9231 just hangs. The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.
<p>
9233 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
9234 mplayer in
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
9235 Edu/Skolelinux
</a>. The reason is simple. We need a good browser
9236 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
9237 not very good. For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
9238 is no way for the user to pause the video. Also, when I
9239 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
9240 tested the browser plugins
</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
9241 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked. If
9242 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
9243 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.
</P>
9245 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
9246 annoying. The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
9247 keyboard shortcuts. When the player is in full screen mode, its
9248 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
9249 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode. I
9250 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
9251 window mode. Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
9252 the current video. It is very nice when playing short videos from the
9253 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
9254 what is going on.
</p>
9260 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>.
9265 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9269 <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>
9275 <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
9276 upgrade testing of the
9277 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
9278 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a> to do
<tt>apt-get autoremove
</tt> when using apt-get.
9279 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
9280 can now present the updated result from today:
</p>
9282 <p>This is for Gnome:
</p>
9284 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
9291 browser-plugin-gnash
9298 freedesktop-sound-theme
9300 gconf-defaults-service
9315 gnome-desktop-environment
9319 gnome-session-canberra
9324 gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
9330 libapache2-mod-dnssd
9333 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
9336 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
9337 libboost-python1.42
.0
9338 libboost-thread1.42
.0
9340 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0
9342 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
9349 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
9364 libgnomepanel2.24-cil
9369 libgtksourceview2.0-common
9370 libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
9371 libmono-addins0.2-cil
9372 libmono-cairo2.0-cil
9373 libmono-corlib2.0-cil
9374 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
9375 libmono-posix2.0-cil
9376 libmono-security2.0-cil
9377 libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
9378 libmono-system2.0-cil
9381 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
9382 libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
9392 libtelepathy-farsight0
9401 nautilus-sendto-empathy
9405 python-aptdaemon-gtk
9407 python-beautifulsoup
9422 python-gtksourceview2
9433 python-pkg-resources
9440 python-twisted-conch
9446 python-zope.interface
9451 rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
9458 system-config-printer-udev
9460 telepathy-mission-control-
5
9473 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
9481 fast-user-switch-applet
9500 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
9502 libsdl1.2debian-alsa
9508 system-config-printer
9515 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
9518 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9521 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
9527 <p>This is for KDE:
</p>
9529 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
9535 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
9542 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
9558 kdeartwork-emoticons
9560 kdeartwork-theme-icon
9564 kdebase-workspace-bin
9565 kdebase-workspace-data
9579 kscreensaver-xsavers
9594 plasma-dataengines-workspace
9596 plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
9597 plasma-runners-addons
9598 plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
9599 plasma-scriptengine-python
9600 plasma-scriptengine-qedje
9601 plasma-scriptengine-ruby
9602 plasma-scriptengine-webkit
9603 plasma-scriptengines
9604 plasma-wallpapers-addons
9605 plasma-widget-folderview
9606 plasma-widget-networkmanagement
9610 xscreensaver-data-extra
9612 xscreensaver-gl-extra
9613 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
9616 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
9620 google-gadgets-common
9638 libggadget-qt-
1.0-
0b
9643 libkonqsidebarplugin4a
9652 libplasma-geolocation-interface4
9654 libplasmagenericshell4
9668 libsmokeknewstuff2-
3
9669 libsmokeknewstuff3-
3
9671 libsmokektexteditor3
9679 libsmokeqtnetwork4-
3
9685 libsmokeqtuitools4-
3
9697 plasma-dataengines-addons
9698 plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
9699 plasma-widget-lancelot
9700 plasma-widgets-addons
9701 plasma-widgets-workspace
9705 update-notifier-common
9708 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
9709 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
9710 differences. I have no idea what packages should be installed after
9711 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.
</p>
9717 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>.
9722 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9726 <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>
9732 <p>Most of the computers in use by the
9733 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project
</a>
9734 are virtual machines. And they have been Xen machines running on a
9735 fairly old IBM eserver xseries
345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
9736 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge
2950 host machine. This was a
9737 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
9738 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
9739 know is not supported by KVM. So to migrate, we had to convert
9740 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.
</p>
9743 <a href=
"http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
9744 nice recipe
</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
9745 migration. It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
9746 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
9747 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data. I NFS mounted the
9748 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.
</p>
9754 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/
35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
9759 if [ -z "$
1" ] ; then
9760 echo "Usage: $
0 <hostname
>"
9766 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
9767 echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
9771 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs. not sure why.
9772 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }')
9773 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }')
9774 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
9777 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=
1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
9778 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
9780 parted $img mklabel msdos
9781 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap
0 $disksize
9782 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
9783 parted $img set
1 boot on
9786 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
9787 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
9789 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=
1M
9790 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
9791 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
9793 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
9794 losetup -d /dev/loop0
9797 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
9798 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.
</p>
9800 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
9801 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-
686 and
9802 set up grub to boot from the disk image. After this, the KVM machines
9803 seem to work just fine.
</p>
9809 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>.
9814 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9818 <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>
9824 <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
9825 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
9826 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
9827 status. Here is a short update based on a test I ran
20101118.
</p>
9829 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
9830 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
9831 can see if anything should be changed.
</p>
9833 <p>This is for Gnome:
</p>
9835 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
9838 apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
9839 browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-
4.3 cups-pk-helper
9840 dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
9841 freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
9842 gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
9843 geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
9844 gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
9845 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
9846 gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
9847 gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
9848 gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
9849 gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
9850 gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
9851 libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
9852 libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-
0 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
9853 libboost-python1.42
.0 libboost-thread1.42
.0 libchamplain-
0.4-
0
9854 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
9855 libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-
1.0-
2
9856 libepc-common libepc-ui-
1.0-
2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
9857 libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
9858 libgdl-
1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-
0 libgif4
9859 libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
9860 libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
9861 libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
9862 libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
9863 libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
9864 libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
9865 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
9866 libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
9867 libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-
6
9868 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6
.8
9869 libpolkit-gtk-
1-
0 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
9870 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6
.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
9871 libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-
4
9872 libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-
0.99-
0
9873 libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
9874 mono-
2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
9875 nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
9876 openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-
4suite-xml
9877 python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
9878 python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
9879 python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
9880 python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
9881 python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
9882 python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
9883 python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
9884 python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
9885 python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
9886 python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
9887 python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
9888 python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
9889 python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
9890 remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
9891 rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
9892 software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
9893 telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-
5 telepathy-salut tomboy
9894 totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
9895 transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
9899 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
9902 arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
9903 epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
9904 fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
9905 gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
9906 gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
9907 gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
9908 guile-
1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
9909 libavahi-ui0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7
9910 libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
9911 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1
9912 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3 libfaad0 libgadu3
9913 libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
9914 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
9915 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
9916 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-
1.0-
0
9917 libgtkhtml2-
0 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
9918 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
9919 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
9920 libmagick++
10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
9921 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
9922 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9
9923 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8
9924 libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
9925 libspeexdsp1 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libsvga1
9926 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
9927 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
9928 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
9929 sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
9930 totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
9933 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
9936 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9939 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
9945 <p>This is for KDE:
</p>
9947 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
9950 autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-
4.3 dcoprss
9951 edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
9952 ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
9953 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
9954 kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
9955 kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
9956 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
9957 kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
9958 kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
9959 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
9960 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
9961 kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
9962 killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
9963 kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
9964 ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42
.0
9965 libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
9966 libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
9967 libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
9968 libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
9969 libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
9970 libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
9971 libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
9972 libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
9973 libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
9974 lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
9975 openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
9976 parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
9977 pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
9978 speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
9982 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
9985 amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
9986 dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
9987 kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
9988 kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
9989 keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
9990 kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
9991 kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
9992 klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
9993 kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
9994 kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
9995 kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
9996 ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
9997 ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
9998 kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
9999 kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
10000 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
10001 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-
0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2
10002 libboost-python1.34
.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
10003 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
10004 libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-
0 libicu38
10005 libiec61883-
0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
10006 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
10007 libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
10008 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
10009 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
10010 libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
10011 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
10012 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-
8 librss1 libsensors3
10013 libsmbios2 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90
10014 libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
10015 mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
10016 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
10017 ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
10020 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
10023 dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
10024 kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
10025 kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
10026 kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
10027 netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
10028 xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
10029 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
10032 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
10035 kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
10042 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>.
10047 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10049 <div class=
"entry">
10050 <div class=
"title">
10051 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd
</a>
10058 <a href=
"http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
10059 call from the Gnash project
</a> for
10060 <a href=
"http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot
</a> slaves to test the
10061 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
10062 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
10063 Debian/Squeeze. I hope this can help the developers in getting new
10064 releases out more often.
</p>
10066 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
10067 I have considered setting up a
<a
10068 href=
"http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd
</a>
10069 machine as well. I have also considered using the kfreebsd
10070 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the
5
10071 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video. Because of this, I
10072 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
10073 kfreebsd. Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
10074 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
10075 screen at random locations). Have not gotten very far with the
10076 testing. Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
10077 fatal problem. Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
10078 useful as a file server for NUUG. Will try to find time to set up a
10079 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.
</p>
10085 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>.
10090 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10092 <div class=
"entry">
10093 <div class=
"title">
10094 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in
3D
</a>
10100 <p><img src=
"http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
10102 <p>3D printing is just great. I just came across this Debian logo in
10104 <a href=
"http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
10105 thingiverse blog
</a>.
</p>
10111 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>.
10116 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10118 <div class=
"entry">
10119 <div class=
"title">
10120 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates
2010-
10-
24</a>
10126 <p>Some updates.
</p>
10128 <p>My
<a href=
"http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge
</a> to
10129 raise money for the project is going well. The lower limit of
10
10130 signers was reached in
24 hours, and so far
13 people have signed it.
10131 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
10132 how far we can get before the time limit of December
24 is reached.
10135 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
10136 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
10137 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
10139 <a href=
"http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov
</a>,
10140 and can be used using
<tt>kcov
<directory
> <binary
></tt>.
10141 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
10142 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
10143 libglib2.0-dev. Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
10144 solvable. I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.
</p>
10146 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for
<a
10147 href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
10148 new alpha release of Debian Edu
</a>, and just published the second
10149 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
10150 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a>
10151 release. Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
10152 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
10153 client servers and diskless workstations. A nice touch added
10154 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
10155 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.
</p>
10161 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>.
10166 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10168 <div class=
"entry">
10169 <div class=
"title">
10170 <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>
10176 <p>In the
<a href=
"http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
10177 popularity-contest numbers
</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
10178 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian. The sixth
10179 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla. This is a clear indication that
10180 working flash is important for Debian users. Around
10 percent of the
10181 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
10184 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August
2008
10185 («
<a href=
"http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
10186 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
10187 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs
</a>»), one of the most important problems
10188 schools experienced with
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
10189 Edu/Skolelinux
</a> was the lack of working Flash. A lot of educational
10190 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
10191 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
10192 good reason to stay with Windows.
</p>
10194 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
10195 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
10196 everything you told him but could work fairly well. This was a
10197 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
10198 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
10199 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
10200 example Internet Explorer
6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
10201 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
10202 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
10203 pages they want to visit.
</p>
10205 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
10206 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
10207 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
10208 Video to working out of the box. For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
10209 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
10210 the new release
0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
10211 unstable. The new version work with more sites that version
0.8.7.
10212 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
10213 release team have not had time to reply to it yet. I hope they agree
10214 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
10215 accept the new package into Squeeze.
</p>
10221 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>.
10226 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10228 <div class=
"entry">
10229 <div class=
"title">
10230 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery
</a>
10236 <p>I discovered this while doing
10237 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
10238 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze
</a>. A few packages
10239 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
10240 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
10241 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.
</p>
10243 <p>An example is from todays
10244 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
10245 of KDE using aptitude
</a>. In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
10246 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade. The cause is simple. If a
10247 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
10248 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
10249 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
10250 because its dependencies are unavailable.
</p>
10252 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:
</p>
10255 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
10256 perl-modules depends on perl (
>=
5.10.1-
1); however:
10257 Version of perl on system is
5.10.0-
19lenny
2.
10258 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
10259 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
10260 </pre></blockquote>
10262 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
10263 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug
</a>, and will
10264 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
10265 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
10266 failures. Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
10267 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
10268 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
10269 of dependency loops.
</p>
10272 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
10273 tireless effort by Bill Allombert
</a>, the number of circular
10275 <a href=
"http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
10276 is dropping
</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)
</p>
10278 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
10279 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier
</a> and
10280 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour
</a> between
10281 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
10282 dependency. Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
10289 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>.
10294 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10296 <div class=
"entry">
10297 <div class=
"title">
10298 <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>
10305 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup
</a>
10307 <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
10309 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
10310 all
</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.
</p>
10312 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
10313 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
10314 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server. The two
10315 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.
</p>
10317 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
10318 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
10319 on a Debian Edu main-server. Here is a summary.
10321 <p><strong>powerdns
</strong></p>
10323 <a href=
"http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
10324 on how to
</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
10327 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
10328 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
10329 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
10330 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
10331 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
10332 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.
</p>
10334 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
10335 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
10336 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
10337 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
10338 "dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
10339 "(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry. For
10340 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
10341 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
10342 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
10343 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
10344 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
10345 spfrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entries it is looking for
10346 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
10347 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
10348 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. The equivalent
10349 ldapsearch commands could look like this:
</p>
10352 ldapsearch -h ldap \
10353 -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
10354 -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
10355 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
10356 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
10357 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
10358 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
10360 ldapsearch -h ldap \
10361 -b dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
10362 -s base -x '(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
10363 dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
10364 hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
10365 srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
10366 </pre></blockquote>
10368 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
10369 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
10370 example LDAP objects used there. In addition to these objects, the
10371 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10375 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10377 objectclass: dnsdomain
10378 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10381 associateddomain: tjener.intern
10383 dn: dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10385 objectclass: dnsdomain2
10386 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10388 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
10389 associateddomain:
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
10390 </pre></blockquote>
10392 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently. When looking for
10393 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
10394 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
10395 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
10396 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
10397 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
10398 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entires it also do a
10399 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=
10.0.2.2)"
10400 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
10401 modifytimestamp. In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
10402 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
10405 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
10409 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10410 '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
10411 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
10412 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
10413 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
10414 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
10416 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10417 '(arecord=
10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
10418 </pre></blockquote>
10420 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
10421 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
10422 reverse lookups.
</p>
10424 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
10425 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
10426 need to generate a DNS reply. This make it able to work with any
10427 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.
</p>
10429 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC
1274) and
10430 dnsdomain2 schemas. The latter is used for reverse entries like
10431 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.
</p>
10433 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
10434 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
10435 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain). The use
10436 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
10437 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.
</p>
10439 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
10440 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
10441 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
10442 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
10443 (zonename and relativedomainname).
</p>
10445 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
10446 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
10447 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
10448 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
10449 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
10450 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):
</p>
10453 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
10456 MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
10457 DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
10458 TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
10459 NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
10460 A6Record $ DNAMERecord
10462 </pre></blockquote>
10464 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
10465 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
10466 all the attributes PowerDNS wants. I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
10467 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
10468 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
10469 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.
</p>
10471 <p><strong>ISC dhcp
</strong></p>
10473 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
10474 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want. This
10475 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
10476 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
10477 what is needed without having to read the source code.
</p>
10479 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
10480 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
10481 stored. These are the relevant entries from
10482 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:
</p>
10485 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
10486 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
10487 </pre></blockquote>
10489 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
10490 configuration it need. The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
10491 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))". The
10492 search result is this entry:
</p>
10495 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10498 objectClass: dhcpServer
10499 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10500 </pre></blockquote>
10502 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
10503 subtree with DHCP configuration. The DHCP configuration subtree base
10504 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
10505 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
10506 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
10507 The search result is this entry:
</p>
10510 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10513 objectClass: dhcpService
10514 objectClass: dhcpOptions
10515 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10516 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
10517 dhcpStatements: authoritative
10518 dhcpOption: smtp-server code
69 = array of ip-address
10519 dhcpOption: www-server code
72 = array of ip-address
10520 dhcpOption: wpad-url code
252 = text
10521 </pre></blockquote>
10523 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time. When
10524 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
10525 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
10526 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
10527 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost. These provide options
10528 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc. Leaving out the
10529 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
10530 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
10531 related computer objects.
</p>
10533 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
10534 of the client (
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00 in this example), using a subtree
10535 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
10536 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
10537 00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00))" as the filter. This is what a host object look
10541 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10544 objectClass: dhcpHost
10545 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
10546 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
10547 </pre></blockquote>
10549 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
10550 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
10551 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure. On the
10552 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
10553 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries. The latter should make
10554 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
10555 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
10556 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
10557 structural object class.
10559 <p><strong>Conclusion
</strong></p>
10561 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
10562 to which LDAP schemas to use. While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
10563 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
10564 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
10565 in the configuration.
</p>
10567 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
10568 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
10569 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
10570 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
10571 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
10574 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
10575 this might work for Debian Edu:
</p>
10579 cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
10580 cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
10581 cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10582 cn=
10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10583 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10584 cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10585 cn=
192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10586 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10587 ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
10588 cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
10589 </pre></blockquote>
10591 <P>This is not tested yet. If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
10592 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
10593 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
10594 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.
</p>
10596 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
10600 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10603 objectClass: dhcpHost
10604 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10605 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
10606 associateddomain: hostname.intern
10607 arecord:
10.11.12.13
10608 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
10609 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
10610 </pre></blockquote>
10612 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
10613 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
10614 auxiliary object class.
</p>
10620 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>.
10625 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10627 <div class=
"entry">
10628 <div class=
"title">
10629 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects
</a>
10635 <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
10636 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
10637 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
10638 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
10639 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.
</p>
10641 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
10642 information finally found a solution that seem to work.
</p>
10644 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
10645 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry. If
10646 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
10647 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
10648 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
10649 to a slave DNS server.
</p>
10651 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
10652 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
10653 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
10654 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
10655 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup. It
10658 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
10659 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
10660 an earlier email. The combined LDAP object will look something like
10664 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10666 objectClass: dhcphost
10667 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10668 objectclass: dnsdomainaux
10669 associateddomain: hostname.intern
10670 arecord:
10.11.12.13
10671 dhcphwaddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
10672 dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
10674 </pre></blockquote>
10676 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
10677 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
10678 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress. LTSP will use
10679 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.
</p>
10681 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
10682 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
10683 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
10684 that. If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
10685 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
10686 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
10687 content. I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
10688 might be a good place to put it.
</p>
10690 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10691 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
10697 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>.
10702 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10704 <div class=
"entry">
10705 <div class=
"title">
10706 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP
</a>
10712 <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
10713 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
10714 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
10715 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.
</p>
10717 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
10718 to get configuration from LDAP. The idea is to look up the MAC
10719 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
10720 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
10723 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
10724 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
10725 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.
</p>
10727 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
10728 this approach. A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
10729 need to be written. Comments, suggestions, etc?
</p>
10732 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
10734 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
10736 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
10737 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
10738 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
10740 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
10741 # existence of attribute names.
10743 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
10744 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
10745 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
10747 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
10748 # configuration settings. Something like this should work:
10750 # objectclass (
1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
10753 # MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
10755 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
10756 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
10757 LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
10758 for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $
5}'|sort -u) ; do
10759 filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
10760 ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
10761 grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
10762 # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
10763 attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
10764 # bass value on to clients
10765 eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
10769 </pre></blockquote>
10771 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
10772 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
10773 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
10774 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
10775 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)
</p>
10777 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10778 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
10780 <p>Update
2010-
07-
17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
10781 configuration in LDAP that was created around year
2000 by
10782 <a href=
"http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
10783 Xperience, Inc.,
2000</a>. I found its
10784 <a href=
"http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files
</a> on a
10785 personal home page over at redhat.com.
</p>
10791 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>.
10796 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10798 <div class=
"entry">
10799 <div class=
"title">
10800 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI
</a>
10807 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
10808 last post
</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
10809 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma. The java application
10810 <a href=
"http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer
</a> is claimed to be capable of
10811 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
10812 authenticate using Kerberos. I have only tested the Kerberos
10813 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
10814 LDAP with my test user yet. It is
10815 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
10816 Debian
</a> testing and unstable at the moment. The only problem I
10817 have with it is how it handle errors. If something go wrong, its
10818 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
10819 and remove the failing query. Nothing big, but very annoying.
</p>
10825 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>.
10830 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10832 <div class=
"entry">
10833 <div class=
"title">
10834 <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>
10840 <p>Here is a short update on my
<a
10841 href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
10842 Debian Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrade testing
</a>. Here is a summary of the
10843 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude. I'm
10844 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
10845 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
10846 (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#
584861</a> and
10847 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#
585716</a>).
</p>
10849 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
10850 complete list of the installed packages. Based on this I see these
10851 differences when I did a test run today. As usual, I do not really
10852 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
10853 publish the difference.
</p>
10855 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
10858 at-spi cpp-
4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
10859 libatspi1.0-
0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-
1-common
10860 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
10861 libgtksourceview-common libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
10862 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
10863 libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
10864 python-
4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
10865 python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
10868 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
10871 bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
10872 gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
10873 libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-
50
10874 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
10875 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9
10876 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3
10877 libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
10878 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
10879 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
10880 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-
0
10881 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
10882 libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++
10
10883 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
10884 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5
10885 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
10886 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
10887 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1
10888 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
10889 libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
10890 mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
10893 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
10896 gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
10897 python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
10898 xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10899 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10900 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
10901 xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
10902 xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
10903 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10904 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10905 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10906 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10907 xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
10908 xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
10909 xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
10910 xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
10911 xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
10912 xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
10913 xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
10914 xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
10915 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
10916 xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
10919 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
10922 deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
10923 xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
10924 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
10927 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
10928 <a href=
"http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
10929 in git
</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
10930 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
10931 the difference somewhat.
10937 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>.
10942 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10944 <div class=
"entry">
10945 <div class=
"title">
10946 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI
</a>
10952 <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
10953 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
10954 tool to browse the LDAP tree. The only one I was able to find in
10955 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
10956 <a href=
"http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA
</a>, which has proved to
10957 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
10958 populated by default in Skolelinux. Thanks to it, I have been able to
10959 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
10960 objects. It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze. If you
10961 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)
</p>
10963 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
10964 the BTS yet. There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
10965 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
10966 Debian submenu in KDE. I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
10969 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet. I would
10970 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
10971 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet. So in the mean time, I use
10972 <a href=
"http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi
</a> for that.
</p>
10974 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
10975 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
10977 <p>Update
2010-
06-
29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
10978 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq
</a> package as a
10979 useful GUI alternative. It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
10980 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze. Unless that
10981 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.
</p>
10987 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>.
10992 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10994 <div class=
"entry">
10995 <div class=
"title">
10996 <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>
11003 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
11004 about the fact
</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
11005 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
11006 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.
</p>
11008 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
11009 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
11010 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
11011 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.
</p>
11013 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
11014 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
11015 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
11018 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
11020 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
11021 schema
</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
11022 available today from IETF.
</p>
11025 --- dhcp.schema (revision
65192)
11026 +++ dhcp.schema (working copy)
11027 @@ -
376,
7 +
376,
7 @@
11028 objectclass (
2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
11030 DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
11032 + SUP top AUXILIARY
11034 MAY (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
11035 X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
11038 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
11039 Edu/Squeeze. We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
11040 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.
</p>
11042 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11043 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
11049 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>.
11054 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11056 <div class=
"entry">
11057 <div class=
"title">
11058 <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>
11064 <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
11065 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run. Until now,
11066 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
11067 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
11068 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
11072 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11073 tasksel --new-install
11074 </pre></blockquote>
11076 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
11077 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
11078 any output what so ever.
11080 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
11081 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
11082 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
11083 happen. Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
11084 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
11085 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run. I ended up using
11089 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11090 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
11092 </pre></blockquote>
11094 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "
<tt>aptitude -q
11095 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
11096 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
11097 ~pimportant
</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
11098 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
11099 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
11102 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
11103 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
11110 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>.
11115 <div class="padding
"></div>
11117 <div class="entry
">
11118 <div class="title
">
11119 <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>
11126 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">testing
11127 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
11128 finally made the upgrade logs available from
11129 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
11130 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
11131 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting. This time
11132 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
11134 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
11135 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze. The
11136 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
11137 xserver-xorg-video* drivers. Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
11138 sure why. When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
11139 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
11140 longer needed. Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
11141 I do not know. Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
11143 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
11144 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
11145 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
11146 too surprising.</p>
11148 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
11149 and avoided, and perhaps others as well. Here are the complete list
11150 of planned removals. The complete logs is available from the URL
11151 above. Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
11152 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
11153 conffile questions. No idea why. I worked around it by using
11154 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
11157 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
11158 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
11159 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
11160 iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
11161 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
11162 nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
11163 serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
11164 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11165 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11166 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11167 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11168 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11169 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11170 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11171 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11172 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11173 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11174 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11175 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11176 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11177 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11178 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11179 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11180 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11181 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11182 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11183 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11184 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11185 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
11186 xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
11188 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
11190 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
11191 djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
11192 gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
11193 gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
11194 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11195 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
11196 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
11197 libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
11198 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
11199 libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
11200 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
11201 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
11202 libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
11203 libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
11204 libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
11205 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
11206 libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
11207 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
11208 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
11209 libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
11210 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
11211 libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
11212 libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
11213 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
11214 openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
11215 python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
11216 python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
11217 python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
11218 swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
11219 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11220 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11223 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
11225 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
11226 kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
11227 kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
11228 kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
11229 kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
11230 libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
11231 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11232 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11233 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11234 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11235 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11236 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11237 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11238 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11239 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11240 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11241 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11242 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11243 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11244 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11245 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11246 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11247 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11248 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11249 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11250 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11251 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11252 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
11254 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
11255 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
11256 djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
11257 ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
11258 kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
11259 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
11260 kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
11261 kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
11262 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
11263 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
11264 kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
11265 kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
11266 klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
11267 kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
11268 krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
11269 ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
11270 kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
11271 kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
11272 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
11273 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11274 libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
11275 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
11276 libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
11277 libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
11278 libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
11279 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
11280 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
11281 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
11282 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
11283 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
11284 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
11285 libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
11286 openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
11287 superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
11288 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
11289 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11290 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11298 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>.
11303 <div class="padding
"></div>
11305 <div class="entry
">
11306 <div class="title
">
11307 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
11313 <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
11314 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly. A few bugs
11315 have been discovered and reported in the process
11316 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
11317 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
11318 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
584861">#584861</a> in
11319 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
11320 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
11322 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
11323 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
11324 it. To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
11325 script is inserted. To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
11326 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
11327 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
11329 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
11330 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
11331 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11332 is created. The bug report
11333 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
11334 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
11335 to make sure the upgrade go well. Testing on virtual and real
11336 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
11337 do the trick in such settings anyway. This is a
11338 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-
26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-
804130/
">known
11339 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
11340 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
11341 working with old kernels or something like that. I really wish the
11342 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
11343 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
11344 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
11345 Debian Squeeze.</p>
11347 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades. This test
11348 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
11364 exec
< /dev/null
11366 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
11367 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
11369 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
11370 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11371 cat
> $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
<<EOF
11375 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
11377 umount $tmpdir/proc
11379 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
11380 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
11381 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
11383 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
11385 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger. It need the test scripts
11386 # to return the correct answers.
11387 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
11388 chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
11390 # Include the desktop and laptop task
11391 for test in desktop laptop ; do
11392 echo
> $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
<<EOF
11396 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
11399 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11400 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
11401 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
11402 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
11404 echo deb $mirror $to main
> $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
11405 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11406 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11407 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
11409 </pre></blockquote>
11411 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
11412 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
11413 differently so far. I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
11414 regularly and post the result on the web. The Gnome upgrade currently
11415 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
11416 kdebase-workspace-data
</p>
11418 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
11419 (KDE
167 KiB, Gnome
516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
11420 post, so I will refrain from trying. I can report that for Gnome,
11421 aptitude report
760 packages upgraded,
448 newly installed,
129 to
11422 remove and
1 not upgraded and
1024MB need to be downloaded while for
11423 KDE the same numbers are
702 packages upgraded,
507 newly installed,
11424 193 to remove and
0 not upgraded and
1117MB need to be downloaded
</p>
11426 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
11427 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
11428 booting without a hitch. Was unsure if there were still bugs with
11429 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
11430 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
11437 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>.
11442 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11444 <div class=
"entry">
11445 <div class=
"title">
11446 <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>
11452 <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
11453 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
11454 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd. The packages with such
11455 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
11456 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart. Because of
11457 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
11458 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.
</p>
11460 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
11461 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
11470 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
11472 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
11473 </pre></blockquote>
11475 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
11479 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-
2.88
11484 </pre></blockquote>
11486 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
11487 sysvinit are not set by upstart. Not sure if it is intentional or not
11488 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.
</p>
11490 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
11491 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
11498 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>.
11503 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11505 <div class=
"entry">
11506 <div class=
"title">
11507 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...
</a>
11514 <a href=
"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
11515 of Rob Weir
</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
11516 <a href=
"http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
11517 Standards Wars
</a> (PDF
25 pages). I recommend it for everyone
11518 following the standards wars of today.
</p>
11524 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>.
11529 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11531 <div class=
"entry">
11532 <div class=
"title">
11533 <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>
11539 <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
11540 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
11541 information extracted from each machine. The script to do so is
11542 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
11543 the Skolelinux build servers:
</p>
11546 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
11548 Dell Computer Corporation
1
11551 eserver xSeries
345 -[
8670M1X]-
1
11555 </pre></blockquote>
11557 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
11558 provided in each machine. Here there are Intel machines without model
11559 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
11560 machines listed as [no-dmi-info]. One can add -l as a command line
11561 option to list the individual machines.
</p>
11563 <p>A larger list is
11564 <a href=
"http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
11565 city of Narvik
</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
11566 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly. In their report there
11567 are ~
1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
11568 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
11569 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
11576 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>.
11581 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11583 <div class=
"entry">
11584 <div class=
"title">
11585 <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>
11591 <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
11592 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled. The
11593 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
11594 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
11597 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
11598 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#
583312</a> initially filed
11599 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
11600 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
11601 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#
524751</a> initially filed against
11602 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.
</p>
11604 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
11605 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
11606 distribution work out of the box for these users. The nvidia driver
11607 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
11608 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
11609 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
11610 distribution that work for them. I have no idea what the solution is,
11611 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.
</p>
11613 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.
</p>
11619 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>.
11624 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11626 <div class=
"entry">
11627 <div class=
"title">
11628 <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>
11634 <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
11635 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
11636 issues are known and should be solved:
11640 <li>The wicd package seen to
11641 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting
</a> and
11642 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup
</a> when
11643 parallel booting is enabled. No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
11644 seem to be on the case.
</li>
11646 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
11647 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition
</a>
11648 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect. The
11649 maintainer is on the case.
</li>
11651 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
11652 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
11653 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back
</a> to
11654 sysv-rc. One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
11655 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
11656 sysv-rc more robust. Will investigate some more and probably upload a
11657 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
11658 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.
</li>
11662 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
11663 solvable before Squeeze is released. In addition to these there are
11664 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
11665 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.
</p>
11667 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11668 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11669 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11670 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
11672 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.
</p>
11678 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>.
11683 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11685 <div class=
"entry">
11686 <div class=
"title">
11687 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer
</a>
11693 <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
11694 found time today to return to the project. Having to spend less time
11695 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
11696 definitely helped freeing some time.
</p>
11698 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu. We
11699 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
11700 get disk and network controllers working. Without having these
11701 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
11702 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
11703 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
11704 an external medium is a support pain. Initially, I expected it to be
11705 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
11706 debian-installer to find and use them. This proved to be wrong.
11707 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
11708 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
11709 /cdrom/firmware/). This also proved to not work, and at this point I
11710 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
11713 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
11714 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
11715 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
11716 packages. It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
11717 "external" media devices. Today I changed it to also look in the
11718 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
11719 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu. I also changed it to
11720 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
11721 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
11722 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
11725 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
11726 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
11727 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
11728 run these before activating the firmware during installation. The
11729 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
11730 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.
</p>
11732 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
11733 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.
</p>
11739 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>.
11744 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11746 <div class=
"entry">
11747 <div class=
"title">
11748 <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>
11754 <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
11755 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
11756 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
11757 expected, if I am to believe the
11758 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
11759 on debian-devel@
</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
11760 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
11761 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen. If serious problems are
11762 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
11763 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
11766 More information about
11767 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11768 based boot sequencing
</a> is available from the Debian wiki. It is
11769 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
11770 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:
</p>
11774 </pre></blockquote>
11776 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11777 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11778 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11779 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
11785 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>.
11790 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11792 <div class=
"entry">
11793 <div class=
"title">
11794 <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>
11800 <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
11801 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
11802 system
</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
11803 network. Each machine will automatically report its status to the
11804 central server after boot and once per night. The network setup is
11805 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
11806 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines. This is useful
11807 to update the DHCP configuration.
</p>
11809 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
11810 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary. Run
11811 this on the collector host:
</p>
11814 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
11815 </pre></blockquote>
11817 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
11818 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.
</p>
11820 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
11821 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
11822 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
11823 tables in LDAP using this information. Such tool is unfortunately not
11830 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>.
11835 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11837 <div class=
"entry">
11838 <div class=
"title">
11839 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart
</a>
11845 <p>The last few days a new boot system called
11846 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd
</a>
11848 <a href=
"http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced
</a>
11850 to the free software world. I have not yet had time to play around
11851 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
11852 <a href=
"http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart
</a>, and might prove to be
11853 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
11854 based boot system. Tollef is
11855 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process
</a> of getting
11856 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work. I
11857 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
11858 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
11859 at the moment do not.
</p>
11861 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
11862 platform support. It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
11863 some new kernel features enabled to function properly. This means
11864 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
11865 system. Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
11868 <p>In the mean time, based on the
11869 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
11870 on debian-devel@
</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
11871 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
11872 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
11873 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies. A
11874 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
11875 already in experimental. If all go well, Squeeze will be released
11876 with parallel booting enabled by default.
</p>
11882 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>.
11887 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11889 <div class=
"entry">
11890 <div class=
"title">
11891 <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>
11897 <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
11898 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
11899 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies. If you want
11900 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
11901 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11902 based boot sequencing
</a> is enabled, and add this line to
11903 /etc/default/rcS:
</p>
11906 CONCURRENCY=makefile
11907 </pre></blockquote>
11909 <p>That is it. It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
11910 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
11911 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
11912 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts. Startpar is configured
11913 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
11914 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
11915 make this happen.
</p>
11917 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result. If some services
11918 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
11919 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
11920 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies). Report bugs and get
11921 the package maintainers to fix it. :)
</p>
11923 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
11924 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct. I
11925 expect we will get there in Squeeze+
1, if we get manage to test and
11926 fix the remaining issues.
</p>
11928 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11929 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11930 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11931 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
11937 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>.
11942 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11944 <div class=
"entry">
11945 <div class=
"title">
11946 <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>
11952 <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version
2.87dsf-
2,
11953 and the upload of insserv version
1.12.0-
10 yesterday, Debian unstable
11954 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing. This
11955 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
11956 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
11957 installation. Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
11958 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.
</p>
11960 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
11961 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
11962 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.
</p>
11968 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>.
11973 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11975 <div class=
"entry">
11976 <div class=
"title">
11977 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development
</a>
11983 <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
11984 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
11985 take over the package and become the new upstream. The number of
11986 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
11987 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
11988 the package up to date.
</p>
11990 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
11991 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman. About
10 days ago, I made
11992 a new upstream tarball with version number
2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
11993 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
11994 distributions. We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
11995 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge. Since the
11996 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
11997 upstream project at
<a href=
"http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah
</a>, and continue
11998 development there. The project is registered and currently waiting
11999 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
12000 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
12001 working on the future release.
</p>
12003 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
12004 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.
</p>
12010 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>.
12015 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12017 <div class=
"entry">
12018 <div class=
"title">
12019 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker
</a>
12025 <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
12026 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
12027 could find more ways to speed up the boot system. This was an Ubuntu
12029 <a href=
"https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
12030 gathering
</a>. It was quite productive. We also discussed the future
12031 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
12032 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
12033 asynchronous and event base. The Ubuntu approach using udev and
12034 upstart might be a good way forward. Time will show.
</p>
12036 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
12037 process in Debian. All of these should be applied to get a quick
12042 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.
</li>
12044 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
12045 clock is in UTC.
</li>
12047 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
12048 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
12049 based boot sequencing
</a>, and enable concurrent booting.
</li>
12053 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
12054 <a href=
"http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
12057 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
12058 unstable yesterday. When we tested it, we were able to cut
6 seconds
12059 from the boot sequence. It depend on very correct dependency
12060 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
12061 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
12064 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
12065 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
12066 startup speed as well. Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
12067 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
12068 possible to run a of them in the same process. A quick way to test
12069 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
12070 insserv'. Will need to test if that work. :)
</p>
12076 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>.
12081 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12083 <div class=
"entry">
12084 <div class=
"title">
12085 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand
</a>
12091 <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
12092 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
12093 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
12094 ulike land rundt om i verden. Resultatene er tendensiøse. For noen
12096 <a href=
"http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
12097 rapport
</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
12098 dagene. Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
12099 <a href=
"http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
12100 höftade Sverigesiffror
</a>, oppsummeres slik:
</p>
12103 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att
25 procent av all mjukvara i
12104 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
12105 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
12106 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
12109 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge? To andre kommentarer er
<a
12110 href=
"http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
12111 piracy figures need a shot of reality
</a> og
<a
12112 href=
"http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
12113 Copyright Treaty Work?
</a></p>
12115 <p>Fant lenkene via
<a
12116 href=
"http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
12117 på Slashdot
</a>.
</p>
12123 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>.
12128 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12130 <div class=
"entry">
12131 <div class=
"title">
12132 <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>
12139 <a href=
"http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
12140 tall
</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet. Fikk meg til
12141 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
12142 jobber til daglig. En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har
490
12143 (
61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og
196
12144 (
25%) windowstjenere, samt
112 (
14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere. Med den
12145 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.
</p>
12151 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>.
12156 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12158 <div class=
"entry">
12159 <div class=
"title">
12160 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis
</a>
12166 <p><a href=
"http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
12167 IT melder
</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
12168 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
12169 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer. Det er ingen tvil om
12170 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
12171 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
12172 bærbare. Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
12173 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
12174 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
12175 foreningsarbeide. Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
12176 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
12177 av dem. Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
12178 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
12179 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
12180 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker. Jeg har LVM på toppen
12181 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
12182 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare. Kostnaden når
12183 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
12184 betydelige. En bør dog passe på passordet. Hvis det går tapt, må
12185 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.
</p>
12187 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
12188 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
12189 krypteringsnøklene. Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
12190 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten. Jeg tror oddsene for at
12191 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
12192 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
12193 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
12200 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>.
12205 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12207 <div class=
"entry">
12208 <div class=
"title">
12209 <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>
12215 <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
12216 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
12217 do not yet know them.
</p>
12219 <p>The first one is
<a href=
"http://valgrind.org/">valgrind
</a>, a
12220 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
12221 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
12222 and it will report any problems on stdout. It is even better if the
12223 program include debug information. With debug information, it is able
12224 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
12225 occurs. It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
12226 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
12227 'using uninitialised value in control logic'. This tool has made it
12228 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
12229 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
12231 <p>The second one is
12232 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity
</a> which is
12233 a source code checker. It is able to process the source of a program
12234 and find problems in the logic without running the program. It
12235 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
12236 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel. It is now a commercial tool
12237 and the company behind it is running
12238 <a href=
"http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service
</a> for the
12239 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
12240 their source checked for free. Several thousand defects have been
12241 found and fixed so far. It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
12242 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
12243 Y lines O to P can never be executed'. The projects included in the
12244 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
12245 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.
</p>
12247 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
12248 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
12249 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
12250 surrounded by today.
</p>
12256 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>.
12261 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12263 <div class=
"entry">
12264 <div class=
"title">
12265 <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>
12272 <a href=
"http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
12273 patch is better than a useless patch
</a>. I completely disagree, as a
12274 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
12275 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
12276 time on fixing it. No patch do not provide any of these positive
12283 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>.
12288 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12290 <div class=
"entry">
12291 <div class=
"title">
12292 <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>
12298 <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
12299 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure. It is the
12300 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
12301 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
12302 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
12303 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
12304 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
12307 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
12308 independently of the server applications. One can even allow users to
12309 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
12310 protocol and format. In the normal case, only one client application
12311 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
12312 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
12313 blocked from doing so.
</p>
12315 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
12316 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
12317 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
12318 requirements change.
</p>
12320 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
12321 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
12322 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.
</p>
12328 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>.
12333 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12335 <div class=
"entry">
12336 <div class=
"title">
12337 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering
</a>
12343 <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
12344 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering. I got a bit done tuning the
12345 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
12346 implementation avahi. It look like it could be useful for us. Almost
12347 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
12348 get to know the Skolelinux system. Walter Bender, involved in the
12349 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
12350 also helped me improve my OLPC installation. He also showed me that
12351 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
12352 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian. As a
12353 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu. We also
12354 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
12355 proved to be too hard for us. The application seem to need more work
12356 before it is ready for me. I look forward to getting home and relax
12363 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>.
12368 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12370 <div class=
"entry">
12371 <div class=
"title">
12372 <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>
12378 <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
12379 optimal. There is RFC
2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
12380 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC
2307bis, with
12381 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory. The RFC
12382 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
12383 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.
</p>
12385 <p>In
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux
</a>,
12386 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
12387 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
12388 and LTSP configuration in LDAP. These objects have a lot in common,
12389 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
12390 object per entity. For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
12391 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
12392 DNS information and another with DHCP information. The schemas
12393 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
12394 object. In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
12395 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
12396 It just do not scale. I believe it is time for a few RFC
12397 specifications to cleam up this mess.
</p>
12399 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
12400 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
12401 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
12402 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.
</p>
12404 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
12405 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.
</p>
12407 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
12408 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up. Time to start a
12409 new IETF work group?
</p>
12415 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>.
12420 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12422 <div class=
"entry">
12423 <div class=
"title">
12424 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut
</a>
12430 <p>Endelig er
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a>
12431 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny
</a> gitt ut.
12432 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
12433 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
12434 stabile utgaven av Debian. Neste steg er nå å få
12435 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a> /
12436 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu
</a> ferdig
12437 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
12438 slippes løs på skolene. Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
12439 gjort dette mulig. Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
12440 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
12441 <tt>insserv
</tt>.
</p>
12447 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>.
12452 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12454 <div class=
"entry">
12455 <div class=
"title">
12456 <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>
12462 <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
12463 Oslo. Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
12464 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
12465 LTSP installation. LTSP now work out of the box on the
10-network.
12466 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
12467 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box. Was working on getting the
12468 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
12469 finish it before the weekend was up.
</p>
12471 <p>Did not find time to look at the
4 VGA cards in one box we got from
12472 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
12473 development gathering. Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
12474 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
12475 of these cards.
</p>
12481 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>.
12486 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12488 <div class=
"entry">
12489 <div class=
"title">
12490 <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>
12496 <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
12497 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
12498 default in Debian Edu. We need an embedded video playing plugin with
12499 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
12500 all the multimedia content available on the web. The test results and
12501 notes are available on
12502 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
12503 Debian wiki
</a>. I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
12504 fill this need. My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
12505 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages. A lot of the MIME
12506 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
12507 video/ogg), just do not work. And simple formats like the
12508 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
12509 totem and vlc plugins. I hope the situation will improve soon. No
12510 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.
</p>
12512 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin. It seem to
12513 be the only one fitting our needs. :/
</p>
12519 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>.
12524 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12526 <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>
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (
9)
</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (
6)
</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (
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</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (
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</a></li>
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7)
</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (
3)
</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (
5)
</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
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</a></li>
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2)
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3)
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5)
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7)
</a></li>
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4)
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151)
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158)
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10)
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17)
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24)
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4)
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351)
</a></li>
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23)
</a></li>
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12)
</a></li>
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30)
</a></li>
12841 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (
9)
</a></li>
12843 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (
18)
</a></li>
12845 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (
20)
</a></li>
12847 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (
42)
</a></li>
12849 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (
15)
</a></li>
12851 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (
20)
</a></li>
12853 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (
9)
</a></li>
12855 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (
8)
</a></li>
12857 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (
2)
</a></li>
12859 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (
1)
</a></li>
12861 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (
8)
</a></li>
12863 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (
39)
</a></li>
12865 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (
9)
</a></li>
12867 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (
292)
</a></li>
12869 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (
189)
</a></li>
12871 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (
33)
</a></li>
12873 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (
2)
</a></li>
12875 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (
64)
</a></li>
12877 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (
102)
</a></li>
12879 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (
1)
</a></li>
12881 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (
1)
</a></li>
12883 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (
11)
</a></li>
12885 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (
3)
</a></li>
12887 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (
10)
</a></li>
12889 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (
1)
</a></li>
12891 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (
5)
</a></li>
12893 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (
2)
</a></li>
12895 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (
53)
</a></li>
12897 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (
4)
</a></li>
12899 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (
5)
</a></li>
12901 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (
55)
</a></li>
12903 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (
6)
</a></li>
12905 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (
12)
</a></li>
12907 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (
50)
</a></li>
12909 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (
3)
</a></li>
12911 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (
2)
</a></li>
12913 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (
9)
</a></li>
12915 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (
59)
</a></li>
12917 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (
4)
</a></li>
12919 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (
40)
</a></li>
12925 <p style=
"text-align: right">
12926 Created by
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