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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "debian".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         27th September 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
  32 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
  33 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
  34 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
  35
  36 <ul>
  37
  38 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
  39 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
  40
  41 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
  42 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
  43
  44 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
  45 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
  46 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
  47 (Youtube)</li>
  48
  49 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
  50 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
  51
  52 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
  53 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
  54
  55 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
  56 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
  57 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
  58
  59 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
  60 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
  61 (Youtube)</li>
  62
  63 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
  64 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
  65
  66 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
  67 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
  68
  69 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
  70 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
  71 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
  72
  73 </ul>
  74
  75 <p>A larger list is available from
  76 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
  77 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
  78
  79 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
  80 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
  81 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
  82 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
  83 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
  84 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
  85 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
  86 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
  87 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
  88 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
  89 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
  90
  91       </div>
  92       <div class="tags">
  93
  94
  95         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>.
  96
  97
  98       </div>
  99     </div>
 100     <div class="padding"></div>
 101
 102     <div class="entry">
 103       <div class="title">
 104         <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>
 105       </div>
 106       <div class="date">
 107         10th September 2013
 108       </div>
 109       <div class="body">
 110         <p>I was introduced to the
 111 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
 112 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
 113 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
 114 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
 115 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
 116 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
 117 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
 118 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
 119
 120 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
 121 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
 122 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
 123 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
 124 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
 125
 126 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
 127 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
 128 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
 129 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
 130 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
 131 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
 132 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
 133 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
 134 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
 135 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
 136 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
 137 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
 138 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
 139 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
 140 missing in Debian).</p>
 141
 142 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
 143 scripts
 144 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
 145 and a administrative web interface
 146 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
 147 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
 148 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
 149 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
 150 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
 151 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
 152 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
 153 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
 154 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
 155 this is really working yet, see
 156 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
 157 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
 158 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
 159 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
 160 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
 161 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
 162 with lots of half baked features.</p>
 163
 164 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
 165 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
 166 at.</p>
 167
 168 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
 169
 170 <ol>
 171
 172 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
 173 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
 174 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
 175 to the Debian installer:<p>
 176 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
 177
 178 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
 179 install on.</li>
 180
 181 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
 182 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
 183
 184 </ol>
 185
 186 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
 187
 188 <ol>
 189
 190 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
 191 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
 192 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
 193 <pre>
 194 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
 195 </pre></li>
 196 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
 197 <pre>
 198 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
 199    apt-key add -
 200 apt-get update
 201 apt-get install freedombox-setup
 202 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
 203 </pre></li>
 204 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
 205
 206 </ol>
 207
 208 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
 209 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
 210 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
 211 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
 212 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
 213
 214 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
 215 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
 216 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
 217 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
 218
 219 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
 220 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
 221 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
 222 irc.debian.org and the
 223 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
 224 mailing list</a>.</p>
 225
 226 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
 227 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
 228 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
 229 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
 230 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
 231 default password is 'secret'.</p>
 232
 233       </div>
 234       <div class="tags">
 235
 236
 237         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>.
 238
 239
 240       </div>
 241     </div>
 242     <div class="padding"></div>
 243
 244     <div class="entry">
 245       <div class="title">
 246         <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>
 247       </div>
 248       <div class="date">
 249         18th August 2013
 250       </div>
 251       <div class="body">
 252         <p>Earlier, I reported about
 253 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
 254 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
 255 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
 256 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
 257 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
 258 currently on the disk.</p>
 259
 260 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
 261 <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>
 262 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
 263 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
 264 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
 265 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
 266 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
 267 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
 268 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
 269 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
 270 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
 271 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
 272 the broken disks.</p>
 273
 274       </div>
 275       <div class="tags">
 276
 277
 278         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>.
 279
 280
 281       </div>
 282     </div>
 283     <div class="padding"></div>
 284
 285     <div class="entry">
 286       <div class="title">
 287         <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>
 288       </div>
 289       <div class="date">
 290         17th July 2013
 291       </div>
 292       <div class="body">
 293         <p>Today I switched to
 294 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
 295 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
 296 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
 297 <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
 298 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
 299 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
 300 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
 301 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
 302 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
 303 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
 304 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
 305 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
 306 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
 307 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
 308 station from now on.</p>
 309
 310 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
 311 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
 312 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
 313 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
 314 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
 315 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
 316 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
 317 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
 318 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
 319 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
 320 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
 321 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
 322
 323 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
 324 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
 325 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
 326 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
 327 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
 328 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
 329 parameters are tuned:</p>
 330
 331 <ul>
 332
 333 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
 334     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
 335
 336 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
 337     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
 338     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
 339
 340 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
 341     systems.</li>
 342
 343 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
 344     /etc/fstab.</li>
 345
 346 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
 347
 348 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
 349     cron.daily).</li>
 350
 351 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
 352     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
 353
 354 </ul>
 355
 356 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
 357 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
 358 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
 359 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
 360 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
 361 from getting the data on the disk (see
 362 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
 363 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
 364 right thing to do.</p>
 365
 366 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
 367 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
 368 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
 369
 370 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
 371 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
 372 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
 373 instead of during my work.</p>
 374
 375 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
 376 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
 377
 378 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
 379 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
 380 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
 381
 382 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
 383 there.</p>
 384
 385 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
 386 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
 387 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
 388 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
 389 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
 390 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
 391 back.</p>
 392
 393       </div>
 394       <div class="tags">
 395
 396
 397         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>.
 398
 399
 400       </div>
 401     </div>
 402     <div class="padding"></div>
 403
 404     <div class="entry">
 405       <div class="title">
 406         <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>
 407       </div>
 408       <div class="date">
 409         10th July 2013
 410       </div>
 411       <div class="body">
 412         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
 413 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
 414 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
 415 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
 416 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
 417 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
 418 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
 419 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
 420
 421 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
 422 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
 423 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
 424 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
 425 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
 426 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
 427 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
 428 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
 429 lock up when I download a new
 430 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
 431 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
 432 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
 433
 434 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
 435 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
 436 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
 437 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
 438 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
 439 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
 440
 441 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
 442 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
 443 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
 444 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
 445 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
 446 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
 447
 448 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
 449 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
 450 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
 451 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
 452 exist).</p>
 453
 454       </div>
 455       <div class="tags">
 456
 457
 458         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>.
 459
 460
 461       </div>
 462     </div>
 463     <div class="padding"></div>
 464
 465     <div class="entry">
 466       <div class="title">
 467         <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>
 468       </div>
 469       <div class="date">
 470          9th July 2013
 471       </div>
 472       <div class="body">
 473         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
 474 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
 475 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
 476 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
 477 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 478 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
 479 Bitraf</a>.</p>
 480
 481 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
 482 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
 483 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
 484 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
 485 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
 486
 487       </div>
 488       <div class="tags">
 489
 490
 491         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>.
 492
 493
 494       </div>
 495     </div>
 496     <div class="padding"></div>
 497
 498     <div class="entry">
 499       <div class="title">
 500         <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>
 501       </div>
 502       <div class="date">
 503          5th July 2013
 504       </div>
 505       <div class="body">
 506         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
 507 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
 508 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
 509 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
 510 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
 511 ended up picking a
 512 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
 513 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
 514 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
 515 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
 516 on that below.</p>
 517
 518 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
 519 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
 520 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
 521 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
 522 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
 523 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
 524 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
 525 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
 526 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
 527
 528 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
 529 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
 530 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
 531 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
 532 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
 533 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
 534 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
 535
 536 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
 537 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
 538
 539 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
 540 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
 541 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
 542 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
 543 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
 544 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
 545 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
 546 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
 547 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
 548 kernel developers as
 549 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
 550 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
 551 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
 552 Lenovo forums, both for
 553 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
 554 2012-11-10</a> and for
 555 <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
 556 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
 557 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
 558 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
 559 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
 560 There is even a
 561 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
 562 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
 563 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
 564
 565 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
 566 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
 567 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
 568 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
 569 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
 570 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
 571 fixed. :)</p>
 572
 573       </div>
 574       <div class="tags">
 575
 576
 577         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>.
 578
 579
 580       </div>
 581     </div>
 582     <div class="padding"></div>
 583
 584     <div class="entry">
 585       <div class="title">
 586         <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>
 587       </div>
 588       <div class="date">
 589          4th July 2013
 590       </div>
 591       <div class="body">
 592         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
 593 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
 594 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
 595 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
 596 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
 597 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
 598 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
 599 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
 600 with an expencive door stop.</p>
 601
 602 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
 603 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
 604 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
 605 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
 606 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
 607 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
 608 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
 609
 610 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
 611 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
 612 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
 613 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
 614 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
 615 new laptop now. :)</p>
 616
 617 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
 618
 619       </div>
 620       <div class="tags">
 621
 622
 623         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>.
 624
 625
 626       </div>
 627     </div>
 628     <div class="padding"></div>
 629
 630     <div class="entry">
 631       <div class="title">
 632         <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>
 633       </div>
 634       <div class="date">
 635         25th June 2013
 636       </div>
 637       <div class="body">
 638         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
 639 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
 640 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
 641 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
 642 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
 643 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
 644 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
 645 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
 646 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
 647 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
 648 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
 649
 650 <p><pre>
 651 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
 652 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
 653 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
 654 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
 655 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
 656 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
 657 firmware-ipw2x00
 658 firmware-ipw2x00
 659 Preconfiguring packages ...
 660 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
 661 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
 662 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
 663 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
 664 #
 665 </pre></p>
 666
 667 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
 668 printed instead:</p>
 669
 670 <p><pre>
 671 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
 672 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
 673 #
 674 </pre></p>
 675
 676 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
 677 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
 678
 679 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
 680 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
 681 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
 682 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
 683 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
 684 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
 685 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
 686 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
 687 machine.</p>
 688
 689 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
 690 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
 691 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
 692 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
 693 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
 694 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
 695
 696       </div>
 697       <div class="tags">
 698
 699
 700         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>.
 701
 702
 703       </div>
 704     </div>
 705     <div class="padding"></div>
 706
 707     <div class="entry">
 708       <div class="title">
 709         <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>
 710       </div>
 711       <div class="date">
 712         11th June 2013
 713       </div>
 714       <div class="body">
 715         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
 716 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
 717 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
 718 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
 719 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
 720 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
 721 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
 722 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
 723 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
 724 i915 driver used by the
 725 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
 726 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
 727
 728 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
 729 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
 730 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
 731 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
 732 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
 733
 734 <pre>
 735 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
 736 update-initramfs -u -k all
 737 </pre>
 738
 739 <p>Since March 2012 there is
 740 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
 741 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
 742 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
 743 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
 744 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
 745 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
 746 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
 747 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
 748 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
 749 number.</p>
 750
 751 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
 752 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
 753
 754 <p><pre>
 755 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
 756     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
 757     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
 758  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
 759  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
 760     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
 761  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
 762     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 763  Latency: 0
 764  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
 765  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
 766  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
 767  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
 768  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
 769  Capabilities: <access denied>
 770  Kernel driver in use: i915
 771 </pre></p>
 772
 773 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
 774
 775 <p><pre>
 776 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
 777        ...
 778         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
 779         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
 780        ...
 781 }
 782 </pre></p>
 783
 784 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
 785 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
 786 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
 787 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
 788 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
 789 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
 790 yet shown up in
 791 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
 792 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
 793 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
 794 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
 795 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
 796 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
 797
 798 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
 799 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
 800 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
 801 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
 802 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
 803 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
 804 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
 805 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
 806 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
 807 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
 808 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
 809 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
 810
 811 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
 812 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
 813 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
 814 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
 815 backlight.</p>
 816
 817       </div>
 818       <div class="tags">
 819
 820
 821         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>.
 822
 823
 824       </div>
 825     </div>
 826     <div class="padding"></div>
 827
 828     <div class="entry">
 829       <div class="title">
 830         <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>
 831       </div>
 832       <div class="date">
 833         27th May 2013
 834       </div>
 835       <div class="body">
 836         <p>Two days ago, I asked
 837 <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
 838 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
 839 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
 840 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
 841 and Windows 8.</p>
 842
 843 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
 844 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
 845 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
 846 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
 847 enough to tell.</p>
 848
 849 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
 850 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
 851 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
 852 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
 853 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
 854 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
 855 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
 856 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
 857 to follow.</p>
 858
 859 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
 860 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
 861 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
 862 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
 863 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
 864 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
 865 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
 866 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
 867
 868 <p>I've updated the
 869 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
 870 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
 871 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
 872 machine.</p>
 873
 874 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
 875 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
 876
 877       </div>
 878       <div class="tags">
 879
 880
 881         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 882
 883
 884       </div>
 885     </div>
 886     <div class="padding"></div>
 887
 888     <div class="entry">
 889       <div class="title">
 890         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
 891       </div>
 892       <div class="date">
 893         25th May 2013
 894       </div>
 895       <div class="body">
 896         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
 897 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
 898 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
 899 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
 900 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
 901 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
 902
 903 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
 904 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
 905 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
 906 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
 907 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
 908 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
 909 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
 910 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
 911 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
 912 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
 913
 914 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
 915 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
 916 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
 917 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
 918 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
 919 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
 920
 921 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
 922 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
 923 on new Laptops?</p>
 924
 925       </div>
 926       <div class="tags">
 927
 928
 929         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>.
 930
 931
 932       </div>
 933     </div>
 934     <div class="padding"></div>
 935
 936     <div class="entry">
 937       <div class="title">
 938         <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>
 939       </div>
 940       <div class="date">
 941         17th May 2013
 942       </div>
 943       <div class="body">
 944         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
 945 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
 946 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
 947 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
 948 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
 949 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
 950 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
 951 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
 952 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
 953 donate some money</a>.
 954
 955 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
 956 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
 957 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
 958 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
 959 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
 960
 961 <p>The script,
 962 <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/>
 963 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
 964 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
 965 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
 966
 967 <ol>
 968
 969 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
 970 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
 971 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
 972     our configuration.</li>
 973 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
 974     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
 975     according to the profile specified in the config above,
 976     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
 977 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
 978     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
 979 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
 980
 981 </ol>
 982
 983 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
 984 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
 985 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
 986 the needed packages.</p>
 987
 988 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
 989 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
 990 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
 991 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
 992 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
 993 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
 994
 995 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
 996 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
 997 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
 998
 999 <p><pre>
1000 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
1001 DESKTOP="lxde"
1002 </pre></p>
1003
1004 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
1005 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
1006 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
1007 boot.</p>
1008
1009       </div>
1010       <div class="tags">
1011
1012
1013         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>.
1014
1015
1016       </div>
1017     </div>
1018     <div class="padding"></div>
1019
1020     <div class="entry">
1021       <div class="title">
1022         <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>
1023       </div>
1024       <div class="date">
1025         11th May 2013
1026       </div>
1027       <div class="body">
1028         <P>In January,
1029 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
1030 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
1031 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
1032 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
1033 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
1034 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
1035 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
1036 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
1037 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
1038 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
1039 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
1040 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
1041
1042 <p><table>
1043 <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>
1044 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
1045 <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>
1046 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
1047 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
1048 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
1049 <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>
1050 <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>
1051 <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>
1052 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
1053 </table></p>
1054
1055 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
1056 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
1057 available in experimental.</p>
1058
1059 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
1060 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
1061 for LEGO designers.</p>
1062
1063       </div>
1064       <div class="tags">
1065
1066
1067         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>.
1068
1069
1070       </div>
1071     </div>
1072     <div class="padding"></div>
1073
1074     <div class="entry">
1075       <div class="title">
1076         <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>
1077       </div>
1078       <div class="date">
1079          5th May 2013
1080       </div>
1081       <div class="body">
1082         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
1083 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
1084 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
1085 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
1086 soon.</p>
1087
1088 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
1089 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
1090 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
1091 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
1092 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
1093 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
1094 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
1095 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
1096 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
1097 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
1098 Edu.</a>
1099
1100 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
1101 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
1102 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
1103 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
1104 follow.<p>
1105
1106       </div>
1107       <div class="tags">
1108
1109
1110         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>.
1111
1112
1113       </div>
1114     </div>
1115     <div class="padding"></div>
1116
1117     <div class="entry">
1118       <div class="title">
1119         <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>
1120       </div>
1121       <div class="date">
1122          3rd April 2013
1123       </div>
1124       <div class="body">
1125         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
1126 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
1127 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
1128 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
1129
1130 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
1131 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
1132 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
1133 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
1134 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
1135 BTS. :)</p>
1136
1137       </div>
1138       <div class="tags">
1139
1140
1141         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>.
1142
1143
1144       </div>
1145     </div>
1146     <div class="padding"></div>
1147
1148     <div class="entry">
1149       <div class="title">
1150         <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>
1151       </div>
1152       <div class="date">
1153          2nd February 2013
1154       </div>
1155       <div class="body">
1156         <p>My
1157 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
1158 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
1159 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
1160 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
1161 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
1162 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
1163 version too.</p>
1164
1165 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
1166 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
1167 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
1168 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
1169 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
1170 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
1171 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
1172 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
1173
1174 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
1175 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
1176 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
1177 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
1178 it. :)</p>
1179
1180 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1181 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1182 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1183
1184       </div>
1185       <div class="tags">
1186
1187
1188         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>.
1189
1190
1191       </div>
1192     </div>
1193     <div class="padding"></div>
1194
1195     <div class="entry">
1196       <div class="title">
1197         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
1198       </div>
1199       <div class="date">
1200         22nd January 2013
1201       </div>
1202       <div class="body">
1203         <p>Yesterday, I
1204 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
1205 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
1206 pluggable hardware devices, which I
1207 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
1208 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
1209 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
1210 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
1211 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
1212 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
1213 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
1214 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
1215 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
1216 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
1217
1218 <pre>
1219 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
1220 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
1221 </pre>
1222
1223 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
1224 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
1225 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
1226 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
1227
1228 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
1229 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
1230 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
1231 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
1232 word.</p>
1233
1234 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
1235 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
1236 process.</p>
1237
1238 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
1239 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
1240
1241       </div>
1242       <div class="tags">
1243
1244
1245         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>.
1246
1247
1248       </div>
1249     </div>
1250     <div class="padding"></div>
1251
1252     <div class="entry">
1253       <div class="title">
1254         <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>
1255       </div>
1256       <div class="date">
1257         21st January 2013
1258       </div>
1259       <div class="body">
1260         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
1261 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
1262 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
1263 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
1264 it, fetch the
1265 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
1266 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
1267 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
1268 autostart script.</p>
1269
1270 <p>The design is simple:</p>
1271
1272 <ul>
1273
1274 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
1275 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
1276
1277 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
1278 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
1279 initially did.</li>
1280
1281 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
1282 the APT database, a database
1283 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
1284 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
1285
1286 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
1287 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
1288 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
1289 package or packages.</li>
1290
1291 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
1292 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
1293
1294 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
1295 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
1296
1297 </ul>
1298
1299 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
1300 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
1301 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
1302 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
1303
1304 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
1305 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
1306 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
1307 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
1308 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
1309
1310 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
1311 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
1312 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
1313 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
1314 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
1315 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
1316 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
1317 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
1318
1319 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
1320 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
1321 '<tt>svn checkout
1322 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
1323 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
1324 devscripts package.</p>
1325
1326 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
1327 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
1328 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
1329 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
1330 instructions</a> for details.</p>
1331
1332       </div>
1333       <div class="tags">
1334
1335
1336         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>.
1337
1338
1339       </div>
1340     </div>
1341     <div class="padding"></div>
1342
1343     <div class="entry">
1344       <div class="title">
1345         <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>
1346       </div>
1347       <div class="date">
1348         19th January 2013
1349       </div>
1350       <div class="body">
1351         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
1352 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
1353 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
1354 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
1355 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
1356 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
1357 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
1358 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
1359 not a durable solution.
1360
1361 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
1362 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
1363
1364 <ul>
1365
1366 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
1367   than A4).</li>
1368 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
1369 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
1370 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
1371 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
1372 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
1373 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
1374 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
1375 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
1376 size).</li>
1377 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
1378   X.org packages.</li>
1379 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
1380   the time).
1381
1382 </ul>
1383
1384 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
1385 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
1386 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
1387 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
1388 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
1389 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
1390 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
1391 still be useful.</p>
1392
1393 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
1394 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
1395 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
1396 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
1397 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
1398 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
1399
1400       </div>
1401       <div class="tags">
1402
1403
1404         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>.
1405
1406
1407       </div>
1408     </div>
1409     <div class="padding"></div>
1410
1411     <div class="entry">
1412       <div class="title">
1413         <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>
1414       </div>
1415       <div class="date">
1416         18th January 2013
1417       </div>
1418       <div class="body">
1419         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
1420 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
1421 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
1422 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
1423 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
1424 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
1425 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
1426
1427 <pre>
1428 #!/usr/bin/python
1429 import sys
1430 import apt
1431 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
1432     cache = apt.Cache()
1433     cache.open(None)
1434     thepkgs = []
1435     for pkg in cache:
1436         version = pkg.candidate
1437         if version is None:
1438             version = pkg.installed
1439         if version is None:
1440             continue
1441         record = version.record
1442         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
1443             continue
1444         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
1445         for t in mime_types:
1446             t = t.rstrip().strip()
1447             if t == mimetype:
1448                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
1449     return thepkgs
1450 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
1451 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
1452     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
1453 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
1454 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
1455     print "  %s" %pkg
1456 </pre>
1457
1458 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
1459
1460 <pre>
1461 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
1462 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
1463   gecko-mediaplayer
1464 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
1465 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
1466   browser-plugin-gnash
1467 %
1468 </pre>
1469
1470 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
1471 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
1472 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
1473 anyone working on adding it?</p>
1474
1475 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
1476 request for icweasel support for this feature is
1477 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
1478 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
1479 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
1480 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
1481
1482       </div>
1483       <div class="tags">
1484
1485
1486         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>.
1487
1488
1489       </div>
1490     </div>
1491     <div class="padding"></div>
1492
1493     <div class="entry">
1494       <div class="title">
1495         <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>
1496       </div>
1497       <div class="date">
1498         16th January 2013
1499       </div>
1500       <div class="body">
1501         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
1502 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
1503 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
1504 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
1505 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
1506 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
1507 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
1508 downloaded by the browser.</p>
1509
1510 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
1511 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
1512 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
1513 can be found on the
1514 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
1515 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
1516 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
1517 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
1518 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
1519
1520 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
1521
1522 <pre>
1523   count MIME type
1524   ----- -----------------------
1525      32 text/plain
1526      30 audio/mpeg
1527      29 image/png
1528      28 image/jpeg
1529      27 application/ogg
1530      26 audio/x-mp3
1531      25 image/tiff
1532      25 image/gif
1533      22 image/bmp
1534      22 audio/x-wav
1535      20 audio/x-flac
1536      19 audio/x-mpegurl
1537      18 video/x-ms-asf
1538      18 audio/x-musepack
1539      18 audio/x-mpeg
1540      18 application/x-ogg
1541      17 video/mpeg
1542      17 audio/x-scpls
1543      17 audio/ogg
1544      16 video/x-ms-wmv
1545 </pre>
1546
1547 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
1548
1549 <pre>
1550   count MIME type
1551   ----- -----------------------
1552      33 text/plain
1553      32 image/png
1554      32 image/jpeg
1555      29 audio/mpeg
1556      27 image/gif
1557      26 image/tiff
1558      26 application/ogg
1559      25 audio/x-mp3
1560      22 image/bmp
1561      21 audio/x-wav
1562      19 audio/x-mpegurl
1563      19 audio/x-mpeg
1564      18 video/mpeg
1565      18 audio/x-scpls
1566      18 audio/x-flac
1567      18 application/x-ogg
1568      17 video/x-ms-asf
1569      17 text/html
1570      17 audio/x-musepack
1571      16 image/x-xbitmap
1572 </pre>
1573
1574 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
1575
1576 <pre>
1577   count MIME type
1578   ----- -----------------------
1579      31 text/plain
1580      31 image/png
1581      31 image/jpeg
1582      29 audio/mpeg
1583      28 application/ogg
1584      27 image/gif
1585      26 image/tiff
1586      26 audio/x-mp3
1587      23 audio/x-wav
1588      22 image/bmp
1589      21 audio/x-flac
1590      20 audio/x-mpegurl
1591      19 audio/x-mpeg
1592      18 video/x-ms-asf
1593      18 video/mpeg
1594      18 audio/x-scpls
1595      18 application/x-ogg
1596      17 audio/x-musepack
1597      16 video/x-ms-wmv
1598      16 video/x-msvideo
1599 </pre>
1600
1601 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
1602 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
1603 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
1604 issues.</p>
1605
1606 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
1607 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
1608
1609       </div>
1610       <div class="tags">
1611
1612
1613         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>.
1614
1615
1616       </div>
1617     </div>
1618     <div class="padding"></div>
1619
1620     <div class="entry">
1621       <div class="title">
1622         <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>
1623       </div>
1624       <div class="date">
1625         15th January 2013
1626       </div>
1627       <div class="body">
1628         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
1629 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
1630 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
1631 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
1632 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
1633 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
1634 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
1635 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
1636 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
1637 packages.</p>
1638
1639 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
1640 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
1641 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
1642 modalias.</p>
1643
1644 <p><blockquote>
1645 Package: package-name
1646 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
1647 </blockquote></p>
1648
1649 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
1650 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
1651
1652 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
1653 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
1654
1655 <p><blockquote>
1656 Package: cheese
1657 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
1658 </blockquote></p>
1659
1660 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
1661 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
1662
1663 <p><blockquote>
1664 Package: pcmciautils
1665 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
1666 </blockquote></p>
1667
1668 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
1669 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
1670
1671 <p><blockquote>
1672 Package: colorhug-client
1673 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
1674 </blockquote></p>
1675
1676 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
1677 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
1678 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
1679
1680 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
1681 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
1682 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
1683 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
1684 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
1685 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
1686 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
1687 Raring.</p>
1688
1689 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
1690 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
1691 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
1692 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
1693 try the
1694 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
1695 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
1696 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
1697 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
1698
1699 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
1700 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
1701
1702 <p><blockquote>
1703 % ./hw-support-lookup
1704 <br>yubikey-personalization
1705 <br>%
1706 </blockquote></p>
1707
1708 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
1709 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
1710
1711 <p><blockquote>
1712 % ./hw-support-lookup
1713 <br>pcmciautils
1714 <br>%
1715 </blockquote></p>
1716
1717 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
1718 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
1719 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
1720
1721 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
1722 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
1723 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
1724 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
1725 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
1726 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
1727 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
1728 see if it work.</p>
1729
1730 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
1731 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
1732 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
1733 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
1734
1735       </div>
1736       <div class="tags">
1737
1738
1739         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>.
1740
1741
1742       </div>
1743     </div>
1744     <div class="padding"></div>
1745
1746     <div class="entry">
1747       <div class="title">
1748         <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>
1749       </div>
1750       <div class="date">
1751         14th January 2013
1752       </div>
1753       <div class="body">
1754         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
1755 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
1756 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
1757 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
1758 in
1759 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
1760 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
1761
1762 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
1763
1764 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
1765 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
1766 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
1767 &lt;URL: <a href="http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device">http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device</a> &gt;,
1768 &lt;URL: <a href="http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c</a> &gt; and
1769 &lt;URL: <a href="http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup">http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup</a> &gt;.
1770
1771 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
1772 this shell script:</p>
1773
1774 <pre>
1775 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
1776 </pre>
1777
1778 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
1779 using modinfo:</p>
1780
1781 <pre>
1782 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
1783 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
1784 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
1785 %
1786 </pre>
1787
1788 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
1789
1790 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
1791 Bridge memory controller:</p>
1792
1793 <p><blockquote>
1794 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
1795 </blockquote></p>
1796
1797 <p>This represent these values:</p>
1798
1799 <pre>
1800  v   00008086  (vendor)
1801  d   00002770  (device)
1802  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
1803  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
1804  bc  06        (bus class)
1805  sc  00        (bus subclass)
1806  i   00        (interface)
1807 </pre>
1808
1809 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
1810 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
1811 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
1812 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
1813
1814 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
1815 means.</p>
1816
1817 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
1818
1819 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
1820 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
1821
1822 <p><blockquote>
1823 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
1824 </blockquote></p>
1825
1826 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
1827
1828 <pre>
1829  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
1830  p    0001  (device product)
1831  d    0206  (bcddevice)
1832  dc     09  (device class)
1833  dsc    00  (device subclass)
1834  dp     00  (device protocol)
1835  ic     09  (interface class)
1836  isc    00  (interface subclass)
1837  ip     00  (interface protocol)
1838 </pre>
1839
1840 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
1841 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
1842 these alias entries show up:</p>
1843
1844 <p><blockquote>
1845 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
1846 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
1847 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
1848 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
1849 </blockquote></p>
1850
1851 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
1852 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
1853 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
1854
1855 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
1856
1857 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
1858 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
1859
1860 <p><blockquote>
1861 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
1862 </blockquote></p>
1863
1864 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
1865
1866 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
1867
1868 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
1869 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
1870 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
1871
1872 <p><blockquote>
1873 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
1874 </blockquote></p>
1875
1876 <p>The values present are</p>
1877
1878 <pre>
1879  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
1880  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
1881  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
1882  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
1883  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
1884  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
1885  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
1886  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
1887  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
1888  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
1889  ct   10             (chassis type)
1890  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
1891 </pre>
1892
1893 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
1894 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
1895
1896 <pre>
1897   3 Desktop
1898   4 Low Profile Desktop
1899   5 Pizza Box
1900   6 Mini Tower
1901   7 Tower
1902   8 Portable
1903   9 Laptop
1904  10 Notebook
1905  11 Hand Held
1906  12 Docking Station
1907  13 All In One
1908  14 Sub Notebook
1909  15 Space-saving
1910  16 Lunch Box
1911  17 Main Server Chassis
1912  18 Expansion Chassis
1913  19 Sub Chassis
1914  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
1915  21 Peripheral Chassis
1916  22 RAID Chassis
1917  23 Rack Mount Chassis
1918  24 Sealed-case PC
1919  25 Multi-system
1920  26 CompactPCI
1921  27 AdvancedTCA
1922  28 Blade
1923  29 Blade Enclosing
1924 </pre>
1925
1926 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
1927 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
1928 claim it is a desktop.</p>
1929
1930 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
1931
1932 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
1933 test machine:</p>
1934
1935 <p><blockquote>
1936 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
1937 </blockquote></p>
1938
1939 <p>The values present are</p>
1940
1941 <pre>
1942   ty  01  (type)
1943   pr  00  (prototype)
1944   id  00  (id)
1945   ex  00  (extra)
1946 </pre>
1947
1948 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
1949 the valid values are.</p>
1950
1951 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
1952
1953 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
1954 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
1955 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
1956 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
1957 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
1958 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
1959 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
1960
1961 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
1962
1963 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
1964 one can use the following shell script:</p>
1965
1966 <pre>
1967   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
1968     echo "$id" ; \
1969     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
1970   done
1971 </pre>
1972
1973 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
1974 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
1975
1976 <pre>
1977   acpi:ACPI0003:
1978     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
1979   acpi:device:
1980   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
1981   acpi:IBM0068:
1982     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
1983     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
1984     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
1985     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
1986   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
1987     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
1988     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
1989     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
1990   [...]
1991 </pre>
1992
1993 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
1994 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
1995 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
1996 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
1997
1998 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
1999 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
2000 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
2001
2002       </div>
2003       <div class="tags">
2004
2005
2006         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>.
2007
2008
2009       </div>
2010     </div>
2011     <div class="padding"></div>
2012
2013     <div class="entry">
2014       <div class="title">
2015         <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>
2016       </div>
2017       <div class="date">
2018         10th January 2013
2019       </div>
2020       <div class="body">
2021         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
2022 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
2023 Launcher and updated the Debian package
2024 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
2025 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
2026 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
2027 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
2028 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
2029 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
2030 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
2031 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
2032 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
2033 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
2034 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
2035 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
2036 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
2037 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
2038 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
2039
2040       </div>
2041       <div class="tags">
2042
2043
2044         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>.
2045
2046
2047       </div>
2048     </div>
2049     <div class="padding"></div>
2050
2051     <div class="entry">
2052       <div class="title">
2053         <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>
2054       </div>
2055       <div class="date">
2056          9th January 2013
2057       </div>
2058       <div class="body">
2059         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
2060 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
2061 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
2062 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
2063 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
2064 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
2065 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
2066 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
2067 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
2068 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
2069 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
2070
2071 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
2072 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
2073 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
2074 simple:
2075
2076 <ul>
2077
2078 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
2079   starting when a user log in.</li>
2080
2081 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
2082   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
2083
2084 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
2085   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
2086   packages.</li>
2087
2088 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
2089   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
2090
2091 </ul>
2092
2093 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
2094 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
2095 discover database to find packages and
2096 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
2097 packages.</p>
2098
2099 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
2100 draft package is now checked into
2101 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
2102 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
2103 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
2104 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
2105 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
2106 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
2107 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
2108 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
2109 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
2110 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
2111 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
2112 because of the freeze).</p>
2113
2114 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
2115 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
2116 inserted):</p>
2117
2118 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
2119
2120 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
2121 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
2122 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
2123
2124 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
2125 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
2126 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
2127 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
2128 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
2129 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
2130 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
2131
2132 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
2133 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
2134 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
2135 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
2136 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
2137 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
2138 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
2139 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
2140 not be installed?</p>
2141
2142 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
2143 please send me an email. :)</p>
2144
2145       </div>
2146       <div class="tags">
2147
2148
2149         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>.
2150
2151
2152       </div>
2153     </div>
2154     <div class="padding"></div>
2155
2156     <div class="entry">
2157       <div class="title">
2158         <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>
2159       </div>
2160       <div class="date">
2161          2nd January 2013
2162       </div>
2163       <div class="body">
2164         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
2165 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
2166 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
2167 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
2168 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
2169 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
2170 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
2171 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
2172 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
2173 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
2174
2175 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
2176 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
2177 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
2178
2179       </div>
2180       <div class="tags">
2181
2182
2183         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>.
2184
2185
2186       </div>
2187     </div>
2188     <div class="padding"></div>
2189
2190     <div class="entry">
2191       <div class="title">
2192         <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>
2193       </div>
2194       <div class="date">
2195         25th December 2012
2196       </div>
2197       <div class="body">
2198         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
2199 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
2200
2201 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
2202 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
2203 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
2204 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
2205 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
2206 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
2207 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
2208 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
2209 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
2210 name.</p>
2211
2212 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
2213 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
2214 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
2215
2216 <blockquote><pre>
2217 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
2218 cd bitcoin
2219 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
2220 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
2221 </pre></blockquote>
2222
2223 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
2224 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
2225 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
2226 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
2227 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
2228 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
2229 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
2230 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
2231 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
2232
2233 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2234 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2235 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2236
2237       </div>
2238       <div class="tags">
2239
2240
2241         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>.
2242
2243
2244       </div>
2245     </div>
2246     <div class="padding"></div>
2247
2248     <div class="entry">
2249       <div class="title">
2250         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
2251       </div>
2252       <div class="date">
2253         21st December 2012
2254       </div>
2255       <div class="body">
2256         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
2257 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
2258 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
2259 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
2260 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
2261 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
2262 is now maintained by a
2263 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
2264 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
2265 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
2266 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
2267 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
2268 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
2269 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
2270 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
2271 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
2272 Corallo in a
2273 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
2274 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
2275 Debian package.</p>
2276
2277 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
2278 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
2279 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
2280 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
2281 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
2282 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
2283 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
2284 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
2285 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
2286 new version to unstable.
2287
2288 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
2289 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
2290 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
2291 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
2292 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
2293 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
2294 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
2295 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
2296 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
2297 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
2298 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
2299 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
2300 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
2301 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
2302 have not tested them.</p>
2303
2304 <p>My
2305 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
2306 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
2307 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
2308 years ago, as can be
2309 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
2310 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
2311 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
2312 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
2313 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
2314 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
2315 the same address as last time,
2316 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2317
2318       </div>
2319       <div class="tags">
2320
2321
2322         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>.
2323
2324
2325       </div>
2326     </div>
2327     <div class="padding"></div>
2328
2329     <div class="entry">
2330       <div class="title">
2331         <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>
2332       </div>
2333       <div class="date">
2334          7th September 2012
2335       </div>
2336       <div class="body">
2337         <p>As I
2338 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
2339 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
2340 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
2341 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
2342 repository for the project</a>.</p>
2343
2344 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
2345 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
2346 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
2347 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
2348
2349 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
2350 PostScript formats at
2351 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
2352 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
2353
2354       </div>
2355       <div class="tags">
2356
2357
2358         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>.
2359
2360
2361       </div>
2362     </div>
2363     <div class="padding"></div>
2364
2365     <div class="entry">
2366       <div class="title">
2367         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
2368       </div>
2369       <div class="date">
2370         16th August 2012
2371       </div>
2372       <div class="body">
2373         <p>I dag fyller
2374 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
2375 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
2376 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
2377
2378       </div>
2379       <div class="tags">
2380
2381
2382         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>.
2383
2384
2385       </div>
2386     </div>
2387     <div class="padding"></div>
2388
2389     <div class="entry">
2390       <div class="title">
2391         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
2392       </div>
2393       <div class="date">
2394         24th June 2012
2395       </div>
2396       <div class="body">
2397         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
2398 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
2399 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
2400 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
2401 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
2402 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
2403 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
2404 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
2405 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
2406 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
2407 missing in my book.</p>
2408
2409 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
2410 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
2411 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
2412 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
2413 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
2414 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
2415 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
2416
2417       </div>
2418       <div class="tags">
2419
2420
2421         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>.
2422
2423
2424       </div>
2425     </div>
2426     <div class="padding"></div>
2427
2428     <div class="entry">
2429       <div class="title">
2430         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
2431       </div>
2432       <div class="date">
2433         21st November 2011
2434       </div>
2435       <div class="body">
2436         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
2437 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
2438 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
2439 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
2440 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
2441 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
2442 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
2443 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
2444 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
2445 the tools to do so.</p>
2446
2447 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
2448 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
2449 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
2450 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
2451
2452 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
2453 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
2454 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
2455 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
2456 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
2457 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
2458 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
2459 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
2460
2461 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
2462 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
2463 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
2464
2465 <p><pre>
2466 #!/usr/bin/perl
2467 use strict;
2468 use warnings;
2469 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
2470 BEGIN {
2471     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
2472     my %rhelmodules = (
2473         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
2474         );
2475     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
2476         eval "use $module;";
2477         if ($@) {
2478             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
2479             system("yum install -y $pkg");
2480             eval "use $module;";
2481         }
2482     }
2483 }
2484 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
2485
2486 upgrade_dell();
2487
2488 exit 0;
2489
2490 sub run_firmware_script {
2491     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
2492     unless ($script) {
2493         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
2494         exit 1
2495     }
2496     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
2497
2498     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
2499         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
2500     } else {
2501         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
2502     }
2503 }
2504
2505 sub run_firmware_scripts {
2506     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
2507     # Run firmware packages
2508     for my $dir (@dirs) {
2509         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
2510         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
2511         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
2512             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
2513             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
2514         }
2515         closedir $dh;
2516     }
2517 }
2518
2519 sub download {
2520     my $url = shift;
2521     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
2522     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
2523 }
2524
2525 sub upgrade_dell {
2526     my @dirs;
2527     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
2528     chomp $product;
2529
2530     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
2531
2532         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
2533         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
2534
2535         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
2536             CLEANUP => 1
2537             );
2538         chdir($tmpdir);
2539         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
2540         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
2541         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
2542         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
2543         my $fwopts = "-q";
2544         if (@paths) {
2545             for my $url (@paths) {
2546                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
2547             }
2548             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
2549         } else {
2550             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
2551             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
2552         }
2553         chdir('/');
2554     } else {
2555         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
2556         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
2557     }
2558 }
2559
2560 sub fetch_dell_fw {
2561     my $path = shift;
2562     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
2563     download($url);
2564 }
2565
2566 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
2567 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
2568 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
2569 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
2570     my $filename = shift;
2571
2572     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
2573     chomp $product;
2574     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
2575
2576     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
2577
2578     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
2579     my @paths;
2580     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
2581         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
2582         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
2583         my $oscode;
2584         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
2585             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
2586         } else {
2587             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
2588         }
2589         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
2590         {
2591             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
2592         }
2593     }
2594     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
2595         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
2596
2597         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
2598         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
2599
2600         my $cpath = $component->{path};
2601         for my $path (@paths) {
2602             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
2603                 push(@paths, $cpath);
2604             }
2605         }
2606     }
2607     return @paths;
2608 }
2609 </pre>
2610
2611 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
2612 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
2613 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
2614 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
2615 outdated.</p>
2616
2617       </div>
2618       <div class="tags">
2619
2620
2621         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>.
2622
2623
2624       </div>
2625     </div>
2626     <div class="padding"></div>
2627
2628     <div class="entry">
2629       <div class="title">
2630         <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>
2631       </div>
2632       <div class="date">
2633          4th August 2011
2634       </div>
2635       <div class="body">
2636         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
2637 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
2638 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
2639 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
2640 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
2641 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
2642 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
2643 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
2644 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
2645
2646 <p><blockquote>
2647 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
2648 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
2649 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
2650 </blockquote></p>
2651
2652 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
2653 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
2654 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
2655 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
2656 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
2657 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
2658 hard to explain.</p>
2659
2660 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
2661 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
2662 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
2663 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
2664 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
2665 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
2666 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
2667 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
2668 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
2669 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
2670 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
2671 mode).</p>
2672
2673 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
2674 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
2675 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
2676 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
2677 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
2678 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
2679 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
2680 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
2681 after visiting single user mode.</p>
2682
2683 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
2684 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
2685 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
2686 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
2687 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
2688 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
2689 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
2690 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
2691
2692 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
2693 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
2694 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
2695
2696       </div>
2697       <div class="tags">
2698
2699
2700         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>.
2701
2702
2703       </div>
2704     </div>
2705     <div class="padding"></div>
2706
2707     <div class="entry">
2708       <div class="title">
2709         <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>
2710       </div>
2711       <div class="date">
2712         30th July 2011
2713       </div>
2714       <div class="body">
2715         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
2716 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
2717 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
2718 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
2719 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
2720 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
2721 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
2722 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
2723 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
2724 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
2725 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
2726 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
2727 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
2728
2729 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
2730 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
2731 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
2732 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
2733 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
2734 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
2735 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
2736 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
2737 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
2738
2739 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
2740 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
2741 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
2742 is presented.</p>
2743
2744 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
2745 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
2746 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
2747 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
2748 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
2749 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
2750 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
2751 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
2752 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
2753 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
2754 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
2755 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
2756 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
2757 find time to push this forward.</p>
2758
2759       </div>
2760       <div class="tags">
2761
2762
2763         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>.
2764
2765
2766       </div>
2767     </div>
2768     <div class="padding"></div>
2769
2770     <div class="entry">
2771       <div class="title">
2772         <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>
2773       </div>
2774       <div class="date">
2775         29th July 2011
2776       </div>
2777       <div class="body">
2778         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
2779 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
2780 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
2781 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
2782 issues.</p>
2783
2784 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
2785 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
2786 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
2787
2788 <ol>
2789
2790 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
2791 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
2792 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
2793 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
2794 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
2795 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
2796 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
2797 Debian.</li>
2798
2799 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
2800 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
2801 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
2802 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
2803 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
2804 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
2805 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
2806 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
2807 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
2808 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
2809 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
2810 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
2811 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
2812
2813 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
2814 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
2815 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
2816 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
2817 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
2818 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
2819 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
2820 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
2821 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
2822 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
2823
2824 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
2825 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
2826 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
2827 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
2828 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
2829 latter behaviour.</li>
2830
2831 </ol>
2832
2833 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
2834 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
2835 it do not matter much.</p>
2836
2837 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
2838 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
2839 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
2840
2841       </div>
2842       <div class="tags">
2843
2844
2845         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2846
2847
2848       </div>
2849     </div>
2850     <div class="padding"></div>
2851
2852     <div class="entry">
2853       <div class="title">
2854         <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>
2855       </div>
2856       <div class="date">
2857         26th July 2011
2858       </div>
2859       <div class="body">
2860         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
2861 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
2862 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
2863 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
2864 security support for a few years.</p>
2865
2866 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
2867 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
2868 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
2869 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
2870 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
2871 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
2872 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
2873 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
2874 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
2875 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
2876 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
2877 easier in the future.</p>
2878
2879 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
2880 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
2881 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
2882 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
2883 do not have time for.</p>
2884
2885       </div>
2886       <div class="tags">
2887
2888
2889         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>.
2890
2891
2892       </div>
2893     </div>
2894     <div class="padding"></div>
2895
2896     <div class="entry">
2897       <div class="title">
2898         <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>
2899       </div>
2900       <div class="date">
2901          3rd April 2011
2902       </div>
2903       <div class="body">
2904         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
2905 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
2906 update in English.</p>
2907
2908 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
2909 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
2910 of the British service
2911 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
2912 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
2913 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
2914 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
2915 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
2916 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
2917 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
2918 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
2919 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
2920 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
2921 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
2922 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
2923 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
2924
2925 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
2926 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
2927 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
2928 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
2929 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
2930 public infrastructure.</p>
2931
2932 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
2933 such service?</p>
2934
2935       </div>
2936       <div class="tags">
2937
2938
2939         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>.
2940
2941
2942       </div>
2943     </div>
2944     <div class="padding"></div>
2945
2946     <div class="entry">
2947       <div class="title">
2948         <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>
2949       </div>
2950       <div class="date">
2951         28th January 2011
2952       </div>
2953       <div class="body">
2954         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
2955 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
2956 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
2957 available on the Internet, and check our locally
2958 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
2959 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
2960 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
2961 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
2962 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
2963 out which security holes were present in our free software
2964 collection.</p>
2965
2966 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
2967 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
2968 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
2969 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
2970 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
2971 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
2972 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
2973 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
2974 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
2975 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
2976 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
2977 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
2978 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
2979 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
2980 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
2981 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
2982
2983 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
2984 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
2985 check out, one could look up
2986 <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
2987 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
2988 The most recent one is
2989 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
2990 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
2991 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
2992
2993 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
2994 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
2995 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
2996 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
2997 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
2998 security issues out.</p>
2999
3000 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
3001 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
3002 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
3003 RHEL is providing
3004 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
3005 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
3006 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
3007
3008 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
3009 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
3010 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
3011 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
3012 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
3013 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
3014 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
3015 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
3016 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
3017 established soon.</p>
3018
3019 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
3020 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
3021 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
3022 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
3023 for their packages.</p>
3024
3025       </div>
3026       <div class="tags">
3027
3028
3029         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>.
3030
3031
3032       </div>
3033     </div>
3034     <div class="padding"></div>
3035
3036     <div class="entry">
3037       <div class="title">
3038         <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>
3039       </div>
3040       <div class="date">
3041         23rd January 2011
3042       </div>
3043       <div class="body">
3044         <p>In the
3045 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
3046 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
3047 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
3048 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
3049 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
3050 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
3051 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
3052 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
3053 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
3054 one of my machines like this:</p>
3055
3056 <pre>
3057 loaded modules:
3058 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
3059 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
3060 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
3061 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
3062 10de:03ec pata_amd
3063 10de:03f6 sata_nv
3064 1022:1103 k8temp
3065 109e:036e bttv
3066 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
3067 11ab:4364 sky2
3068 </pre>
3069
3070 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
3071 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
3072
3073 <pre>
3074 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
3075     echo loaded pci modules:
3076     (
3077         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
3078         for address in * ; do
3079             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
3080                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
3081                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
3082                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
3083                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
3084                     echo "$id $module"
3085                 fi
3086             fi
3087         done
3088     )
3089     echo
3090 fi
3091 </pre>
3092
3093 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
3094 mappings:</p>
3095
3096 <pre>
3097 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
3098     echo loaded usb modules:
3099     (
3100         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
3101         for address in * ; do
3102             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
3103                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
3104                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
3105                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
3106                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
3107                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
3108                         echo "$id $module"
3109                     fi
3110                 fi
3111             fi
3112         done
3113     )
3114     echo
3115 fi
3116 </pre>
3117
3118 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
3119 well.</p>
3120
3121       </div>
3122       <div class="tags">
3123
3124
3125         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>.
3126
3127
3128       </div>
3129     </div>
3130     <div class="padding"></div>
3131
3132     <div class="entry">
3133       <div class="title">
3134         <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>
3135       </div>
3136       <div class="date">
3137         22nd December 2010
3138       </div>
3139       <div class="body">
3140         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
3141 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
3142 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
3143 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
3144 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
3145 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
3146 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
3147 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
3148 university.</p>
3149
3150 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
3151 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
3152 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
3153 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
3154 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
3155 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
3156 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
3157 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
3158
3159 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
3160 I perform on a new model.</p>
3161
3162 <ul>
3163
3164 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
3165 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
3166 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
3167
3168 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
3169 installation, X.org is working.</li>
3170
3171 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
3172 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
3173 reported by the program.</li>
3174
3175 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
3176 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
3177 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
3178 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
3179 normally test this by playing
3180 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
3181 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
3182
3183 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
3184 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
3185
3186 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
3187 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
3188
3189 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
3190 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
3191
3192 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
3193 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
3194 few.</li>
3195
3196 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
3197 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
3198 notice this.</li>
3199
3200 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
3201 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
3202 resume.</li>
3203
3204 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
3205 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
3206 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
3207 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
3208 not.</li>
3209
3210 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
3211 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
3212 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
3213 existence.</li>
3214
3215 </ul>
3216
3217 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
3218 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
3219 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
3220 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
3221 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
3222 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
3223 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
3224 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
3225
3226       </div>
3227       <div class="tags">
3228
3229
3230         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>.
3231
3232
3233       </div>
3234     </div>
3235     <div class="padding"></div>
3236
3237     <div class="entry">
3238       <div class="title">
3239         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
3240       </div>
3241       <div class="date">
3242         11th December 2010
3243       </div>
3244       <div class="body">
3245         <p>As I continue to explore
3246 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
3247 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
3248 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
3249
3250 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
3251 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
3252 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
3253 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
3254 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
3255 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
3256 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
3257 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
3258 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
3259 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
3260 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
3261 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
3262 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
3263 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
3264 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
3265 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
3266 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
3267 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
3268 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
3269 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
3270
3271 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
3272 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
3273 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
3274 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
3275 If the Skolelinux foundation
3276 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
3277 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
3278 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
3279 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
3280 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
3281 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
3282 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
3283 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
3284
3285 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
3286 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
3287 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
3288 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
3289 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
3290 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
3291 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
3292 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
3293 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
3294 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
3295 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
3296 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
3297 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
3298 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
3299 currencies.</p>
3300
3301 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
3302 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
3303 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
3304 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
3305 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
3306 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
3307 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
3308 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
3309 BitCoins.  Check out
3310 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
3311 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
3312 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
3313 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
3314 yet.</p>
3315
3316 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
3317 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
3318 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
3319 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
3320 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
3321
3322       </div>
3323       <div class="tags">
3324
3325
3326         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>.
3327
3328
3329       </div>
3330     </div>
3331     <div class="padding"></div>
3332
3333     <div class="entry">
3334       <div class="title">
3335         <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>
3336       </div>
3337       <div class="date">
3338         10th December 2010
3339       </div>
3340       <div class="body">
3341         <p>With this weeks lawless
3342 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
3343 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
3344 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
3345 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
3346 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
3347 A blog post from
3348 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
3349 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
3350 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
3351 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
3352 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
3353 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
3354 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
3355
3356 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
3357 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
3358 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
3359 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
3360 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
3361 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
3362 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
3363 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
3364 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
3365 Debian</a> soon.</p>
3366
3367 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
3368 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
3369 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
3370 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
3371 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
3372 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
3373 you can even get
3374 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
3375 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
3376 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
3377 on the current exchange rates.</p>
3378
3379 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
3380 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
3381 donations to the address
3382 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
3383
3384       </div>
3385       <div class="tags">
3386
3387
3388         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>.
3389
3390
3391       </div>
3392     </div>
3393     <div class="padding"></div>
3394
3395     <div class="entry">
3396       <div class="title">
3397         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
3398       </div>
3399       <div class="date">
3400         27th November 2010
3401       </div>
3402       <div class="body">
3403         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
3404 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
3405 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
3406 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
3407 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
3408 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
3409 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
3410 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
3411
3412 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
3413 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
3414 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
3415 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
3416 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
3417 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
3418 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
3419 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
3420 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
3421 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
3422 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
3423
3424 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
3425 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
3426 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
3427 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
3428 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
3429 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
3430 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
3431 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
3432 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
3433 what is going on.</p>
3434
3435       </div>
3436       <div class="tags">
3437
3438
3439         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>.
3440
3441
3442       </div>
3443     </div>
3444     <div class="padding"></div>
3445
3446     <div class="entry">
3447       <div class="title">
3448         <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>
3449       </div>
3450       <div class="date">
3451         22nd November 2010
3452       </div>
3453       <div class="body">
3454         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
3455 upgrade testing of the
3456 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
3457 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
3458 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
3459 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
3460
3461 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
3462
3463 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3464
3465 <blockquote><p>
3466   apache2.2-bin
3467   aptdaemon
3468   baobab
3469   binfmt-support
3470   browser-plugin-gnash
3471   cheese-common
3472   cli-common
3473   cups-pk-helper
3474   dmz-cursor-theme
3475   empathy
3476   empathy-common
3477   freedesktop-sound-theme
3478   freeglut3
3479   gconf-defaults-service
3480   gdm-themes
3481   gedit-plugins
3482   geoclue
3483   geoclue-hostip
3484   geoclue-localnet
3485   geoclue-manual
3486   geoclue-yahoo
3487   gnash
3488   gnash-common
3489   gnome
3490   gnome-backgrounds
3491   gnome-cards-data
3492   gnome-codec-install
3493   gnome-core
3494   gnome-desktop-environment
3495   gnome-disk-utility
3496   gnome-screenshot
3497   gnome-search-tool
3498   gnome-session-canberra
3499   gnome-system-log
3500   gnome-themes-extras
3501   gnome-themes-more
3502   gnome-user-share
3503   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
3504   gstreamer0.10-tools
3505   gtk2-engines
3506   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
3507   gtk2-engines-smooth
3508   hamster-applet
3509   libapache2-mod-dnssd
3510   libapr1
3511   libaprutil1
3512   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
3513   libaprutil1-ldap
3514   libart2.0-cil
3515   libboost-date-time1.42.0
3516   libboost-python1.42.0
3517   libboost-thread1.42.0
3518   libchamplain-0.4-0
3519   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
3520   libcheese-gtk18
3521   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
3522   libcryptui0
3523   libdiscid0
3524   libelf1
3525   libepc-1.0-2
3526   libepc-common
3527   libepc-ui-1.0-2
3528   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
3529   libfreerdp0
3530   libgconf2.0-cil
3531   libgdata-common
3532   libgdata7
3533   libgdu-gtk0
3534   libgee2
3535   libgeoclue0
3536   libgexiv2-0
3537   libgif4
3538   libglade2.0-cil
3539   libglib2.0-cil
3540   libgmime2.4-cil
3541   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
3542   libgnome2.24-cil
3543   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
3544   libgpod-common
3545   libgpod4
3546   libgtk2.0-cil
3547   libgtkglext1
3548   libgtksourceview2.0-common
3549   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
3550   libmono-addins0.2-cil
3551   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
3552   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
3553   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
3554   libmono-posix2.0-cil
3555   libmono-security2.0-cil
3556   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
3557   libmono-system2.0-cil
3558   libmtp8
3559   libmusicbrainz3-6
3560   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
3561   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
3562   libopal3.6.8
3563   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
3564   libpt2.6.7
3565   libpython2.6
3566   librpm1
3567   librpmio1
3568   libsdl1.2debian
3569   libsrtp0
3570   libssh-4
3571   libtelepathy-farsight0
3572   libtelepathy-glib0
3573   libtidy-0.99-0
3574   media-player-info
3575   mesa-utils
3576   mono-2.0-gac
3577   mono-gac
3578   mono-runtime
3579   nautilus-sendto
3580   nautilus-sendto-empathy
3581   p7zip-full
3582   pkg-config
3583   python-aptdaemon
3584   python-aptdaemon-gtk
3585   python-axiom
3586   python-beautifulsoup
3587   python-bugbuddy
3588   python-clientform
3589   python-coherence
3590   python-configobj
3591   python-crypto
3592   python-cupshelpers
3593   python-elementtree
3594   python-epsilon
3595   python-evolution
3596   python-feedparser
3597   python-gdata
3598   python-gdbm
3599   python-gst0.10
3600   python-gtkglext1
3601   python-gtksourceview2
3602   python-httplib2
3603   python-louie
3604   python-mako
3605   python-markupsafe
3606   python-mechanize
3607   python-nevow
3608   python-notify
3609   python-opengl
3610   python-openssl
3611   python-pam
3612   python-pkg-resources
3613   python-pyasn1
3614   python-pysqlite2
3615   python-rdflib
3616   python-serial
3617   python-tagpy
3618   python-twisted-bin
3619   python-twisted-conch
3620   python-twisted-core
3621   python-twisted-web
3622   python-utidylib
3623   python-webkit
3624   python-xdg
3625   python-zope.interface
3626   remmina
3627   remmina-plugin-data
3628   remmina-plugin-rdp
3629   remmina-plugin-vnc
3630   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
3631   rhythmbox-plugins
3632   rpm-common
3633   rpm2cpio
3634   seahorse-plugins
3635   shotwell
3636   software-center
3637   system-config-printer-udev
3638   telepathy-gabble
3639   telepathy-mission-control-5
3640   telepathy-salut
3641   tomboy
3642   totem
3643   totem-coherence
3644   totem-mozilla
3645   totem-plugins
3646   transmission-common
3647   xdg-user-dirs
3648   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
3649   xserver-xephyr
3650 </p></blockquote>
3651
3652 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3653
3654 <blockquote><p>
3655   cheese
3656   ekiga
3657   eog
3658   epiphany-extensions
3659   evolution-exchange
3660   fast-user-switch-applet
3661   file-roller
3662   gcalctool
3663   gconf-editor
3664   gdm
3665   gedit
3666   gedit-common
3667   gnome-games
3668   gnome-games-data
3669   gnome-nettool
3670   gnome-system-tools
3671   gnome-themes
3672   gnuchess
3673   gucharmap
3674   guile-1.8-libs
3675   libavahi-ui0
3676   libdmx1
3677   libgalago3
3678   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
3679   libgtksourceview2.0-0
3680   liblircclient0
3681   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
3682   libspeexdsp1
3683   libsvga1
3684   rhythmbox
3685   seahorse
3686   sound-juicer
3687   system-config-printer
3688   totem-common
3689   transmission-gtk
3690   vinagre
3691   vino
3692 </p></blockquote>
3693
3694 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3695
3696 <blockquote><p>
3697   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
3698 </p></blockquote>
3699
3700 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3701
3702 <blockquote><p>
3703 [nothing]
3704 </p></blockquote>
3705
3706 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
3707
3708 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3709
3710 <blockquote><p>
3711   ksmserver
3712 </p></blockquote>
3713
3714 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3715
3716 <blockquote><p>
3717   kwin
3718   network-manager-kde
3719 </p></blockquote>
3720
3721 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3722
3723 <blockquote><p>
3724   arts
3725   dolphin
3726   freespacenotifier
3727   google-gadgets-gst
3728   google-gadgets-xul
3729   kappfinder
3730   kcalc
3731   kcharselect
3732   kde-core
3733   kde-plasma-desktop
3734   kde-standard
3735   kde-window-manager
3736   kdeartwork
3737   kdeartwork-emoticons
3738   kdeartwork-style
3739   kdeartwork-theme-icon
3740   kdebase
3741   kdebase-apps
3742   kdebase-workspace
3743   kdebase-workspace-bin
3744   kdebase-workspace-data
3745   kdeeject
3746   kdelibs
3747   kdeplasma-addons
3748   kdeutils
3749   kdewallpapers
3750   kdf
3751   kfloppy
3752   kgpg
3753   khelpcenter4
3754   kinfocenter
3755   konq-plugins-l10n
3756   konqueror-nsplugins
3757   kscreensaver
3758   kscreensaver-xsavers
3759   ktimer
3760   kwrite
3761   libgle3
3762   libkde4-ruby1.8
3763   libkonq5
3764   libkonq5-templates
3765   libnetpbm10
3766   libplasma-ruby
3767   libplasma-ruby1.8
3768   libqt4-ruby1.8
3769   marble-data
3770   marble-plugins
3771   netpbm
3772   nuvola-icon-theme
3773   plasma-dataengines-workspace
3774   plasma-desktop
3775   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
3776   plasma-runners-addons
3777   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
3778   plasma-scriptengine-python
3779   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
3780   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
3781   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
3782   plasma-scriptengines
3783   plasma-wallpapers-addons
3784   plasma-widget-folderview
3785   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
3786   ruby
3787   sweeper
3788   update-notifier-kde
3789   xscreensaver-data-extra
3790   xscreensaver-gl
3791   xscreensaver-gl-extra
3792   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
3793 </p></blockquote>
3794
3795 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3796
3797 <blockquote><p>
3798   ark
3799   google-gadgets-common
3800   google-gadgets-qt
3801   htdig
3802   kate
3803   kdebase-bin
3804   kdebase-data
3805   kdepasswd
3806   kfind
3807   klipper
3808   konq-plugins
3809   konqueror
3810   ksysguard
3811   ksysguardd
3812   libarchive1
3813   libcln6
3814   libeet1
3815   libeina-svn-06
3816   libggadget-1.0-0b
3817   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
3818   libgps19
3819   libkdecorations4
3820   libkephal4
3821   libkonq4
3822   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
3823   libkscreensaver5
3824   libksgrd4
3825   libksignalplotter4
3826   libkunitconversion4
3827   libkwineffects1a
3828   libmarblewidget4
3829   libntrack-qt4-1
3830   libntrack0
3831   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
3832   libplasmaclock4a
3833   libplasmagenericshell4
3834   libprocesscore4a
3835   libprocessui4a
3836   libqalculate5
3837   libqedje0a
3838   libqtruby4shared2
3839   libqzion0a
3840   libruby1.8
3841   libscim8c2a
3842   libsmokekdecore4-3
3843   libsmokekdeui4-3
3844   libsmokekfile3
3845   libsmokekhtml3
3846   libsmokekio3
3847   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
3848   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
3849   libsmokekparts3
3850   libsmokektexteditor3
3851   libsmokekutils3
3852   libsmokenepomuk3
3853   libsmokephonon3
3854   libsmokeplasma3
3855   libsmokeqtcore4-3
3856   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
3857   libsmokeqtgui4-3
3858   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
3859   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
3860   libsmokeqtscript4-3
3861   libsmokeqtsql4-3
3862   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
3863   libsmokeqttest4-3
3864   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
3865   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
3866   libsmokeqtxml4-3
3867   libsmokesolid3
3868   libsmokesoprano3
3869   libtaskmanager4a
3870   libtidy-0.99-0
3871   libweather-ion4a
3872   libxklavier16
3873   libxxf86misc1
3874   okteta
3875   oxygencursors
3876   plasma-dataengines-addons
3877   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
3878   plasma-widget-lancelot
3879   plasma-widgets-addons
3880   plasma-widgets-workspace
3881   polkit-kde-1
3882   ruby1.8
3883   systemsettings
3884   update-notifier-common
3885 </p></blockquote>
3886
3887 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
3888 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
3889 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
3890 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
3891
3892       </div>
3893       <div class="tags">
3894
3895
3896         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>.
3897
3898
3899       </div>
3900     </div>
3901     <div class="padding"></div>
3902
3903     <div class="entry">
3904       <div class="title">
3905         <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>
3906       </div>
3907       <div class="date">
3908         22nd November 2010
3909       </div>
3910       <div class="body">
3911         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
3912 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
3913 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
3914 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
3915 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
3916 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
3917 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
3918 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
3919 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
3920
3921 <p>I found
3922 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
3923 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
3924 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
3925 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
3926 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
3927 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
3928
3929 <pre>
3930 #!/bin/sh
3931
3932 # Based on
3933 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
3934
3935 set -e
3936 set -x
3937
3938 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
3939     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
3940     exit 1
3941 else
3942     host="$1"
3943 fi
3944
3945 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
3946     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
3947     exit 1
3948 fi
3949
3950 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
3951 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
3952 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
3953 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
3954
3955 img=$host.img
3956 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
3957 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
3958
3959 parted $img mklabel msdos
3960 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
3961 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
3962 parted $img set 1 boot on
3963
3964 modprobe dm-mod
3965 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
3966 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
3967
3968 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
3969 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
3970 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
3971
3972 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
3973 losetup -d /dev/loop0
3974 </pre>
3975
3976 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
3977 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
3978
3979 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
3980 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
3981 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
3982 seem to work just fine.</p>
3983
3984       </div>
3985       <div class="tags">
3986
3987
3988         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>.
3989
3990
3991       </div>
3992     </div>
3993     <div class="padding"></div>
3994
3995     <div class="entry">
3996       <div class="title">
3997         <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>
3998       </div>
3999       <div class="date">
4000         20th November 2010
4001       </div>
4002       <div class="body">
4003         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
4004 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
4005 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
4006 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
4007
4008 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
4009 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
4010 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
4011
4012 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
4013
4014 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4015
4016 <blockquote><p>
4017   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
4018   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
4019   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
4020   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
4021   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
4022   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
4023   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
4024   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
4025   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
4026   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
4027   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
4028   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
4029   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
4030   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
4031   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
4032   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
4033   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
4034   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
4035   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
4036   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
4037   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
4038   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
4039   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
4040   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
4041   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
4042   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
4043   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
4044   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
4045   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
4046   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
4047   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
4048   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
4049   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
4050   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
4051   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
4052   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
4053   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
4054   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
4055   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
4056   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
4057   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
4058   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
4059   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
4060   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
4061   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
4062   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
4063   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
4064   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
4065   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
4066   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
4067   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
4068   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
4069   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
4070   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
4071   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
4072   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
4073   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
4074   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
4075   zip
4076 </p></blockquote>
4077
4078 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
4079
4080 <blockquote><p>
4081   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
4082   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
4083   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
4084   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
4085   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
4086   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
4087   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
4088   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
4089   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
4090   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
4091   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
4092   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
4093   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
4094   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
4095   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
4096   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
4097   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
4098   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
4099   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
4100   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
4101   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
4102   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
4103   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
4104   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
4105   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
4106   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
4107   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
4108   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
4109   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
4110 </p></blockquote>
4111
4112 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4113
4114 <blockquote><p>
4115   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
4116 </p></blockquote>
4117
4118 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4119
4120 <blockquote><p>
4121 [nothing]
4122 </p></blockquote>
4123
4124 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
4125
4126 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
4127
4128 <blockquote><p>
4129   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
4130   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
4131   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
4132   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
4133   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
4134   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
4135   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
4136   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
4137   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
4138   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
4139   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
4140   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
4141   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
4142   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
4143   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
4144   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
4145   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
4146   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
4147   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
4148   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
4149   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
4150   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
4151   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
4152   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
4153   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
4154   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
4155   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
4156   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
4157   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
4158   ttf-sazanami-gothic
4159 </p></blockquote>
4160
4161 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
4162
4163 <blockquote><p>
4164   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
4165   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
4166   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
4167   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
4168   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
4169   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
4170   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
4171   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
4172   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
4173   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
4174   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
4175   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
4176   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
4177   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
4178   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
4179   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
4180   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
4181   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
4182   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
4183   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
4184   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
4185   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
4186   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
4187   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
4188   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
4189   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
4190   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
4191   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
4192   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
4193   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
4194   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
4195   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
4196   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
4197 </p></blockquote>
4198
4199 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
4200
4201 <blockquote><p>
4202   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
4203   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
4204   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
4205   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
4206   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
4207   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
4208   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
4209 </p></blockquote>
4210
4211 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
4212
4213 <blockquote><p>
4214   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
4215 </p></blockquote>
4216
4217       </div>
4218       <div class="tags">
4219
4220
4221         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>.
4222
4223
4224       </div>
4225     </div>
4226     <div class="padding"></div>
4227
4228     <div class="entry">
4229       <div class="title">
4230         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
4231       </div>
4232       <div class="date">
4233         20th November 2010
4234       </div>
4235       <div class="body">
4236         <p>Answering
4237 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
4238 call from the Gnash project</a> for
4239 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
4240 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
4241 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
4242 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
4243 releases out more often.</p>
4244
4245 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
4246 I have considered setting up a <a
4247 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
4248 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
4249 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
4250 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
4251 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
4252 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
4253 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
4254 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
4255 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
4256 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
4257 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
4258 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
4259
4260       </div>
4261       <div class="tags">
4262
4263
4264         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>.
4265
4266
4267       </div>
4268     </div>
4269     <div class="padding"></div>
4270
4271     <div class="entry">
4272       <div class="title">
4273         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
4274       </div>
4275       <div class="date">
4276          9th November 2010
4277       </div>
4278       <div class="body">
4279         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
4280
4281 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
4282 3D linked in from
4283 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
4284 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
4285
4286       </div>
4287       <div class="tags">
4288
4289
4290         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>.
4291
4292
4293       </div>
4294     </div>
4295     <div class="padding"></div>
4296
4297     <div class="entry">
4298       <div class="title">
4299         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
4300       </div>
4301       <div class="date">
4302         24th October 2010
4303       </div>
4304       <div class="body">
4305         <p>Some updates.</p>
4306
4307 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
4308 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
4309 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
4310 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
4311 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
4312 :)</p>
4313
4314 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
4315 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
4316 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
4317 It is called
4318 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
4319 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
4320 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
4321 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
4322 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
4323 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
4324
4325 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
4326 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
4327 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
4328 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
4329 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
4330 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
4331 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
4332 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
4333 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
4334 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
4335
4336       </div>
4337       <div class="tags">
4338
4339
4340         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>.
4341
4342
4343       </div>
4344     </div>
4345     <div class="padding"></div>
4346
4347     <div class="entry">
4348       <div class="title">
4349         <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>
4350       </div>
4351       <div class="date">
4352          4th September 2010
4353       </div>
4354       <div class="body">
4355         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
4356 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
4357 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
4358 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
4359 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
4360 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
4361 installed.</p>
4362
4363 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
4364 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
4365 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
4366 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
4367 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
4368 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
4369 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
4370 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
4371 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
4372
4373 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
4374 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
4375 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
4376 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
4377 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
4378 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
4379 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
4380 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
4381 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
4382 pages they want to visit.</p>
4383
4384 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
4385 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
4386 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
4387 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
4388 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
4389 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
4390 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
4391 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
4392 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
4393 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
4394 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
4395
4396       </div>
4397       <div class="tags">
4398
4399
4400         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>.
4401
4402
4403       </div>
4404     </div>
4405     <div class="padding"></div>
4406
4407     <div class="entry">
4408       <div class="title">
4409         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
4410       </div>
4411       <div class="date">
4412         27th July 2010
4413       </div>
4414       <div class="body">
4415         <p>I discovered this while doing
4416 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
4417 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
4418 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
4419 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
4420 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
4421
4422 <p>An example is from todays
4423 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
4424 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
4425 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
4426 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
4427 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
4428 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
4429 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
4430
4431 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
4432
4433 <blockquote><pre>
4434 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
4435  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
4436   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
4437 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
4438  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
4439 </pre></blockquote>
4440
4441 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
4442 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
4443 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
4444 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
4445 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
4446 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
4447 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
4448 of dependency loops.</p>
4449
4450 <p>Thanks to
4451 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
4452 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
4453 dependencies
4454 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
4455 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
4456
4457 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
4458 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
4459 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
4460 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
4461 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
4462 it.</p>
4463
4464       </div>
4465       <div class="tags">
4466
4467
4468         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>.
4469
4470
4471       </div>
4472     </div>
4473     <div class="padding"></div>
4474
4475     <div class="entry">
4476       <div class="title">
4477         <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>
4478       </div>
4479       <div class="date">
4480         17th July 2010
4481       </div>
4482       <div class="body">
4483         <p>This is a
4484 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
4485 on my
4486 <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
4487 work</a> on
4488 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
4489 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
4490
4491 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
4492 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
4493 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
4494 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
4495
4496 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
4497 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
4498 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
4499
4500 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
4501
4502 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
4503 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
4504 the web.
4505
4506 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
4507 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
4508 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
4509 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
4510 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
4511 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
4512
4513 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
4514 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
4515 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
4516 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
4517 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
4518 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
4519 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
4520 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
4521 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
4522 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
4523 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
4524 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
4525 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
4526 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
4527 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
4528 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
4529
4530 <blockquote><pre>
4531 ldapsearch -h ldap \
4532   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
4533   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
4534   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
4535   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
4536   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
4537   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
4538
4539 ldapsearch -h ldap \
4540   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
4541   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
4542   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
4543   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
4544   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
4545 </pre></blockquote>
4546
4547 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
4548 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
4549 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
4550 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4551 also exist.</p>
4552
4553 <blockquote><pre>
4554 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4555 objectclass: top
4556 objectclass: dnsdomain
4557 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4558 dc: tjener
4559 arecord: 10.0.2.2
4560 associateddomain: tjener.intern
4561
4562 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4563 objectclass: top
4564 objectclass: dnsdomain2
4565 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4566 dc: 2
4567 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
4568 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
4569 </pre></blockquote>
4570
4571 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
4572 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
4573 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
4574 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
4575 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
4576 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
4577 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
4578 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
4579 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
4580 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
4581 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
4582 instead.</p>
4583
4584 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
4585 like this:</p>
4586
4587 <blockquote><pre>
4588 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
4589   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
4590   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
4591   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
4592   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
4593   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
4594
4595 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
4596   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
4597 </pre></blockquote>
4598
4599 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
4600 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
4601 reverse lookups.</p>
4602
4603 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
4604 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
4605 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
4606 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
4607
4608 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
4609 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
4610 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
4611
4612 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
4613 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
4614 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
4615 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
4616 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
4617
4618 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
4619 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
4620 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
4621 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
4622 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
4623
4624 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
4625 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
4626 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
4627 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
4628 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
4629 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
4630
4631 <blockquote><pre>
4632 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
4633     SUP top
4634     AUXILIARY
4635     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
4636           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
4637           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
4638           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
4639           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
4640     ))
4641 </pre></blockquote>
4642
4643 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
4644 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
4645 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
4646 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
4647 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
4648 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
4649
4650 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
4651
4652 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
4653 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
4654 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
4655 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
4656 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
4657
4658 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
4659 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
4660 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
4661 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
4662
4663 <blockquote><pre>
4664 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
4665 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
4666 </pre></blockquote>
4667
4668 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
4669 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
4670 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
4671 search result is this entry:</p>
4672
4673 <blockquote><pre>
4674 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4675 cn: dhcp
4676 objectClass: top
4677 objectClass: dhcpServer
4678 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4679 </pre></blockquote>
4680
4681 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
4682 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
4683 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
4684 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
4685 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
4686 The search result is this entry:</p>
4687
4688 <blockquote><pre>
4689 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4690 cn: DHCP Config
4691 objectClass: top
4692 objectClass: dhcpService
4693 objectClass: dhcpOptions
4694 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4695 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
4696 dhcpStatements: authoritative
4697 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
4698 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
4699 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
4700 </pre></blockquote>
4701
4702 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
4703 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
4704 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
4705 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
4706 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
4707 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
4708 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
4709 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
4710 related computer objects.</p>
4711
4712 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
4713 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
4714 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
4715 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
4716 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
4717 like:</p>
4718
4719 <blockquote><pre>
4720 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4721 cn: hostname
4722 objectClass: top
4723 objectClass: dhcpHost
4724 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
4725 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
4726 </pre></blockquote>
4727
4728 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
4729 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
4730 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
4731 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
4732 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
4733 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
4734 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
4735 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
4736 structural object class.
4737
4738 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
4739
4740 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
4741 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
4742 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
4743 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
4744 in the configuration.</p>
4745
4746 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
4747 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
4748 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
4749 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
4750 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
4751 structure.</p>
4752
4753 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
4754 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
4755
4756 <blockquote><pre>
4757 ou=services
4758   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
4759     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
4760     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
4761       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
4762         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
4763     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
4764       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
4765         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
4766     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
4767       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
4768 </pre></blockquote>
4769
4770 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
4771 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
4772 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
4773 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
4774
4775 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
4776 like this:</p>
4777
4778 <blockquote><pre>
4779 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4780 dc: hostname
4781 objectClass: top
4782 objectClass: dhcpHost
4783 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4784 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
4785 associateddomain: hostname.intern
4786 arecord: 10.11.12.13
4787 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
4788 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
4789 </pre></blockquote>
4790
4791 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
4792 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
4793 auxiliary object class.</p>
4794
4795       </div>
4796       <div class="tags">
4797
4798
4799         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>.
4800
4801
4802       </div>
4803     </div>
4804     <div class="padding"></div>
4805
4806     <div class="entry">
4807       <div class="title">
4808         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
4809       </div>
4810       <div class="date">
4811         14th July 2010
4812       </div>
4813       <div class="body">
4814         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
4815 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
4816 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
4817 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
4818 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
4819
4820 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
4821 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
4822
4823 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
4824 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
4825 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
4826 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
4827 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
4828 to a slave DNS server.</p>
4829
4830 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
4831 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
4832 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
4833 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
4834 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
4835 seem to work.</p>
4836
4837 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
4838 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
4839 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
4840 this:</p>
4841
4842 <blockquote><pre>
4843   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4844   cn: hostname
4845   objectClass: dhcphost
4846   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
4847   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
4848   associateddomain: hostname.intern
4849   arecord: 10.11.12.13
4850   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
4851   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
4852   ldapconfigsound: Y
4853 </pre></blockquote>
4854
4855 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
4856 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
4857 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
4858 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
4859
4860 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
4861 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
4862 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
4863 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
4864 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
4865 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
4866 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
4867 might be a good place to put it.</p>
4868
4869 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
4870 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
4871
4872       </div>
4873       <div class="tags">
4874
4875
4876         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>.
4877
4878
4879       </div>
4880     </div>
4881     <div class="padding"></div>
4882
4883     <div class="entry">
4884       <div class="title">
4885         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
4886       </div>
4887       <div class="date">
4888         11th July 2010
4889       </div>
4890       <div class="body">
4891         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
4892 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
4893 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
4894 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
4895
4896 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
4897 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
4898 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
4899 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
4900 LTSP clients.</p>
4901
4902 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
4903 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
4904 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
4905
4906 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
4907 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
4908 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
4909
4910 <blockquote><pre>
4911 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
4912 #
4913 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
4914 #
4915 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
4916 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
4917 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
4918 #
4919 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
4920 # existence of attribute names.
4921 #
4922 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
4923 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
4924 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
4925 #
4926 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
4927 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
4928 #
4929 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
4930 #     SUP top
4931 #     AUXILIARY
4932 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
4933
4934 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
4935 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
4936     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
4937     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
4938         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
4939         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
4940             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
4941             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
4942             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
4943             # bass value on to clients
4944             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
4945         done
4946     done
4947 fi
4948 </pre></blockquote>
4949
4950 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
4951 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
4952 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
4953 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
4954 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
4955
4956 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
4957 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
4958
4959 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
4960 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
4961 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
4962 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
4963 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
4964 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
4965
4966       </div>
4967       <div class="tags">
4968
4969
4970         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>.
4971
4972
4973       </div>
4974     </div>
4975     <div class="padding"></div>
4976
4977     <div class="entry">
4978       <div class="title">
4979         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
4980       </div>
4981       <div class="date">
4982          9th July 2010
4983       </div>
4984       <div class="body">
4985         <p>Since
4986 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
4987 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
4988 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
4989 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
4990 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
4991 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
4992 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
4993 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
4994 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
4995 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
4996 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
4997 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
4998 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
4999
5000       </div>
5001       <div class="tags">
5002
5003
5004         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>.
5005
5006
5007       </div>
5008     </div>
5009     <div class="padding"></div>
5010
5011     <div class="entry">
5012       <div class="title">
5013         <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>
5014       </div>
5015       <div class="date">
5016          3rd July 2010
5017       </div>
5018       <div class="body">
5019         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
5020 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
5021 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
5022 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
5023 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
5024 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
5025 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
5026 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
5027
5028 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
5029 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
5030 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
5031 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
5032 publish the difference.</p>
5033
5034 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5035
5036 <blockquote><p>
5037   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5038   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
5039   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
5040   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
5041   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
5042   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
5043   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
5044   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
5045 </p></blockquote>
5046
5047 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5048
5049 <blockquote><p>
5050   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
5051   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
5052   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
5053   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
5054   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
5055   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
5056   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
5057   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
5058   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
5059   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
5060   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
5061   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
5062   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
5063   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
5064   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
5065   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
5066   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
5067   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
5068   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
5069   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
5070 </p></blockquote>
5071
5072 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5073
5074 <blockquote><p>
5075   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
5076   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
5077   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5078   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5079   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
5080   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
5081   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
5082   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5083   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5084   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5085   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5086   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
5087   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
5088   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
5089   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
5090   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
5091   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
5092   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
5093   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
5094   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
5095   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
5096 </p></blockquote>
5097
5098 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5099
5100 <blockquote><p>
5101   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
5102   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
5103   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
5104 </p></blockquote>
5105
5106 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
5107 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
5108 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
5109 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
5110 the difference somewhat.
5111
5112       </div>
5113       <div class="tags">
5114
5115
5116         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>.
5117
5118
5119       </div>
5120     </div>
5121     <div class="padding"></div>
5122
5123     <div class="entry">
5124       <div class="title">
5125         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
5126       </div>
5127       <div class="date">
5128         28th June 2010
5129       </div>
5130       <div class="body">
5131         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
5132 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
5133 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
5134 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
5135 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
5136 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
5137 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
5138 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
5139 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
5140 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
5141
5142 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
5143 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
5144 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
5145 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
5146 released.</p>
5147
5148 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
5149 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
5150 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
5151 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
5152
5153 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
5154 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5155
5156 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
5157 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
5158 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
5159 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
5160 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
5161
5162       </div>
5163       <div class="tags">
5164
5165
5166         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>.
5167
5168
5169       </div>
5170     </div>
5171     <div class="padding"></div>
5172
5173     <div class="entry">
5174       <div class="title">
5175         <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>
5176       </div>
5177       <div class="date">
5178         24th June 2010
5179       </div>
5180       <div class="body">
5181         <p>A while back, I
5182 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
5183 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
5184 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
5185 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
5186
5187 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
5188 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
5189 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
5190 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
5191
5192 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
5193 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
5194 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
5195 Debian Edu.</p>
5196
5197 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
5198 the
5199 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
5200 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
5201 available today from IETF.</p>
5202
5203 <pre>
5204 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
5205 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
5206 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
5207  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
5208         NAME 'dhcpHost'
5209         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
5210 -       SUP top
5211 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
5212         MUST cn
5213         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
5214         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
5215 </pre>
5216
5217 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
5218 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
5219 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
5220
5221 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
5222 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
5223
5224       </div>
5225       <div class="tags">
5226
5227
5228         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>.
5229
5230
5231       </div>
5232     </div>
5233     <div class="padding"></div>
5234
5235     <div class="entry">
5236       <div class="title">
5237         <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>
5238       </div>
5239       <div class="date">
5240         16th June 2010
5241       </div>
5242       <div class="body">
5243         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
5244 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
5245 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
5246 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
5247 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
5248 this:
5249
5250 <blockquote><pre>
5251 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
5252 tasksel --new-install
5253 </pre></blockquote>
5254
5255 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
5256 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
5257 any output what so ever.
5258
5259 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
5260 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
5261 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
5262 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
5263 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
5264 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
5265 code like this:
5266
5267 <blockquote><pre>
5268 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
5269 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
5270 $cmd
5271 </pre></blockquote>
5272
5273 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
5274 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
5275 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
5276 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
5277 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
5278 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
5279 installation.</p>
5280
5281 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
5282 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
5283 like this.</p>
5284
5285       </div>
5286       <div class="tags">
5287
5288
5289         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>.
5290
5291
5292       </div>
5293     </div>
5294     <div class="padding"></div>
5295
5296     <div class="entry">
5297       <div class="title">
5298         <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>
5299       </div>
5300       <div class="date">
5301         13th June 2010
5302       </div>
5303       <div class="body">
5304         <p>My
5305 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
5306 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
5307 finally made the upgrade logs available from
5308 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
5309 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
5310 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
5311 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
5312
5313 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
5314 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
5315 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
5316 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
5317 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
5318 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
5319 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
5320 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
5321
5322 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
5323 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
5324 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
5325 too surprising.</p>
5326
5327 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
5328 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
5329 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
5330 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
5331 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
5332 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
5333 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
5334 continue.</p>
5335
5336 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
5337 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
5338   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
5339   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
5340   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
5341   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
5342   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
5343   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5344   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5345   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
5346   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
5347   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
5348   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
5349   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5350   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5351   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5352   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5353   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5354   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
5355   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
5356   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
5357   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
5358   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
5359   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
5360   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
5361   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
5362   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
5363   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
5364   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
5365   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
5366
5367 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
5368
5369 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
5370   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
5371   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
5372   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
5373   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
5374   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
5375   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
5376   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
5377   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
5378   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
5379   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
5380   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
5381   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
5382   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
5383   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
5384   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
5385   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
5386   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
5387   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
5388   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
5389   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
5390   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
5391   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
5392   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
5393   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
5394   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
5395   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
5396   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
5397   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
5398   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5399   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
5400   zip</p>
5401
5402 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
5403
5404 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
5405   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
5406   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
5407   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
5408   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
5409   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
5410   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
5411   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
5412   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
5413   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
5414   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
5415   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
5416   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
5417   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
5418   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5419   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
5420   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
5421   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
5422   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
5423   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
5424   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
5425   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
5426   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
5427   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
5428   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
5429   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
5430   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
5431   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
5432
5433 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
5434 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
5435   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
5436   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
5437   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
5438   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
5439   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
5440   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
5441   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
5442   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
5443   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
5444   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
5445   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
5446   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
5447   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
5448   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
5449   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
5450   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
5451   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
5452   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
5453   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
5454   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
5455   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
5456   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
5457   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
5458   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
5459   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
5460   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
5461   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
5462   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
5463   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
5464   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
5465   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
5466   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
5467   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
5468   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
5469   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
5470   xulrunner-1.9</p>
5471
5472
5473       </div>
5474       <div class="tags">
5475
5476
5477         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>.
5478
5479
5480       </div>
5481     </div>
5482     <div class="padding"></div>
5483
5484     <div class="entry">
5485       <div class="title">
5486         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
5487       </div>
5488       <div class="date">
5489         11th June 2010
5490       </div>
5491       <div class="body">
5492         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
5493 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
5494 have been discovered and reported in the process
5495 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
5496 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
5497 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
5498 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
5499 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
5500
5501 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
5502 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
5503 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
5504 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
5505 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
5506 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
5507
5508 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
5509 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
5510 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
5511 is created.  The bug report
5512 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
5513 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
5514 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
5515 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
5516 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
5517 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
5518 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
5519 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
5520 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
5521 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
5522 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
5523 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
5524 Debian Squeeze.</p>
5525
5526 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
5527 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
5528 trick:</p>
5529
5530 <blockquote><pre>
5531 #!/bin/sh
5532 set -ex
5533
5534 if [ "$1" ] ; then
5535     desktop=$1
5536 else
5537     desktop=gnome
5538 fi
5539
5540 from=lenny
5541 to=squeeze
5542
5543 exec &lt; /dev/null
5544 unset LANG
5545 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
5546 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
5547 fuser -mv .
5548 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
5549 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
5550 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
5551 #!/bin/sh
5552 exit 101
5553 EOF
5554 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
5555 exit_cleanup() {
5556     umount $tmpdir/proc
5557 }
5558 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
5559 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
5560 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
5561
5562 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
5563
5564 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
5565 # to return the correct answers.
5566 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
5567     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
5568
5569 # Include the desktop and laptop task
5570 for test in desktop laptop ; do
5571     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
5572 #!/bin/sh
5573 exit 2
5574 EOF
5575     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
5576 done
5577
5578 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
5579 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
5580 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
5581 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
5582
5583 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
5584 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
5585 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
5586 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
5587 fuser -mv
5588 </pre></blockquote>
5589
5590 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
5591 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
5592 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
5593 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
5594 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
5595 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
5596
5597 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
5598 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
5599 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
5600 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
5601 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
5602 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
5603 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
5604
5605 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
5606 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
5607 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
5608 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
5609 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
5610 packages.</p>
5611
5612       </div>
5613       <div class="tags">
5614
5615
5616         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>.
5617
5618
5619       </div>
5620     </div>
5621     <div class="padding"></div>
5622
5623     <div class="entry">
5624       <div class="title">
5625         <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>
5626       </div>
5627       <div class="date">
5628          6th June 2010
5629       </div>
5630       <div class="body">
5631         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
5632 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
5633 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
5634 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
5635 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
5636 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
5637 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
5638
5639 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
5640 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
5641 COLUMNS):</p>
5642
5643 <blockquote><pre>
5644 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
5645 previous=N
5646 PREVLEVEL=
5647 RUNLEVEL=
5648 runlevel=S
5649 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
5650 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
5651 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
5652 </pre></blockquote>
5653
5654 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
5655 script.</p>
5656
5657 <blockquote><pre>
5658 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
5659 previous=N
5660 PREVLEVEL=N
5661 RUNLEVEL=S
5662 runlevel=S
5663 </pre></blockquote>
5664
5665 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
5666 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
5667 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
5668
5669 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
5670 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
5671 choice.</p>
5672
5673       </div>
5674       <div class="tags">
5675
5676
5677         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>.
5678
5679
5680       </div>
5681     </div>
5682     <div class="padding"></div>
5683
5684     <div class="entry">
5685       <div class="title">
5686         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
5687       </div>
5688       <div class="date">
5689          6th June 2010
5690       </div>
5691       <div class="body">
5692         <p>Via the
5693 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
5694 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
5695 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
5696 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
5697 following the standards wars of today.</p>
5698
5699       </div>
5700       <div class="tags">
5701
5702
5703         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>.
5704
5705
5706       </div>
5707     </div>
5708     <div class="padding"></div>
5709
5710     <div class="entry">
5711       <div class="title">
5712         <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>
5713       </div>
5714       <div class="date">
5715          3rd June 2010
5716       </div>
5717       <div class="body">
5718         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
5719 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
5720 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
5721 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
5722 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
5723
5724 <blockquote><pre>
5725 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
5726   vendor                    count
5727   Dell Computer Corporation     1
5728     PowerEdge 1750              1
5729   IBM                           1
5730     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
5731   Intel                         2
5732   [no-dmi-info]                 3
5733 maintainer:~#
5734 </pre></blockquote>
5735
5736 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
5737 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
5738 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
5739 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
5740 option to list the individual machines.</p>
5741
5742 <p>A larger list is
5743 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
5744 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
5745 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
5746 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
5747 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
5748 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
5749 collector.</p>
5750
5751       </div>
5752       <div class="tags">
5753
5754
5755         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>.
5756
5757
5758       </div>
5759     </div>
5760     <div class="padding"></div>
5761
5762     <div class="entry">
5763       <div class="title">
5764         <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>
5765       </div>
5766       <div class="date">
5767          1st June 2010
5768       </div>
5769       <div class="body">
5770         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
5771 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
5772 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
5773 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
5774 wait.</p>
5775
5776 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
5777 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
5778 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
5779 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
5780 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
5781 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
5782
5783 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
5784 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
5785 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
5786 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
5787 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
5788 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
5789 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
5790 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
5791
5792 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
5793
5794       </div>
5795       <div class="tags">
5796
5797
5798         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>.
5799
5800
5801       </div>
5802     </div>
5803     <div class="padding"></div>
5804
5805     <div class="entry">
5806       <div class="title">
5807         <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>
5808       </div>
5809       <div class="date">
5810         27th May 2010
5811       </div>
5812       <div class="body">
5813         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
5814 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
5815 issues are known and should be solved:
5816
5817 <p><ul>
5818
5819 <li>The wicd package seen to
5820 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
5821 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
5822 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
5823 seem to be on the case.</li>
5824
5825 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
5826 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
5827 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
5828 maintainer is on the case.</li>
5829
5830 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
5831 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
5832 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
5833 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
5834 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
5835 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
5836 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
5837 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
5838
5839 </ul></p>
5840
5841 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
5842 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
5843 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
5844 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
5845
5846 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
5847 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
5848 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
5849 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
5850
5851 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
5852
5853       </div>
5854       <div class="tags">
5855
5856
5857         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>.
5858
5859
5860       </div>
5861     </div>
5862     <div class="padding"></div>
5863
5864     <div class="entry">
5865       <div class="title">
5866         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
5867       </div>
5868       <div class="date">
5869         22nd May 2010
5870       </div>
5871       <div class="body">
5872         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
5873 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
5874 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
5875 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
5876
5877 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
5878 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
5879 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
5880 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
5881 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
5882 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
5883 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
5884 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
5885 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
5886 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
5887 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
5888 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
5889 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
5890 going to work.</p>
5891
5892 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
5893 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
5894 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
5895 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
5896 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
5897 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
5898 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
5899 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
5900 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
5901 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
5902 Edu.</p>
5903
5904 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
5905 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
5906 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
5907 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
5908 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
5909 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
5910
5911 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
5912 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
5913
5914       </div>
5915       <div class="tags">
5916
5917
5918         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>.
5919
5920
5921       </div>
5922     </div>
5923     <div class="padding"></div>
5924
5925     <div class="entry">
5926       <div class="title">
5927         <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>
5928       </div>
5929       <div class="date">
5930         14th May 2010
5931       </div>
5932       <div class="body">
5933         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
5934 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
5935 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
5936 expected, if I am to believe the
5937 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
5938 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
5939 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
5940 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
5941 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
5942 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
5943 version.</p>
5944
5945 More information about
5946 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
5947 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
5948 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
5949 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
5950
5951 <blockquote><pre>
5952 CONCURRENCY=none
5953 </pre></blockquote>
5954
5955 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
5956 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
5957 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
5958 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
5959
5960       </div>
5961       <div class="tags">
5962
5963
5964         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>.
5965
5966
5967       </div>
5968     </div>
5969     <div class="padding"></div>
5970
5971     <div class="entry">
5972       <div class="title">
5973         <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>
5974       </div>
5975       <div class="date">
5976         14th May 2010
5977       </div>
5978       <div class="body">
5979         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
5980 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
5981 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
5982 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
5983 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
5984 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
5985 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
5986 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
5987
5988 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
5989 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
5990 this on the collector host:</p>
5991
5992 <blockquote><pre>
5993 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
5994 </pre></blockquote>
5995
5996 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
5997 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
5998
5999 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
6000 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
6001 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
6002 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
6003 written yet.</p>
6004
6005       </div>
6006       <div class="tags">
6007
6008
6009         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>.
6010
6011
6012       </div>
6013     </div>
6014     <div class="padding"></div>
6015
6016     <div class="entry">
6017       <div class="title">
6018         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
6019       </div>
6020       <div class="date">
6021         13th May 2010
6022       </div>
6023       <div class="body">
6024         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
6025 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
6026 has been
6027 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
6028
6029 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
6030 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
6031 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
6032 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
6033 based boot system.  Tollef is
6034 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
6035 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
6036 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
6037 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
6038 at the moment do not.</p>
6039
6040 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
6041 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
6042 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
6043 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
6044 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
6045 way forward.</p>
6046
6047 <p>In the mean time, based on the
6048 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
6049 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
6050 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
6051 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
6052 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
6053 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
6054 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
6055 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
6056
6057       </div>
6058       <div class="tags">
6059
6060
6061         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>.
6062
6063
6064       </div>
6065     </div>
6066     <div class="padding"></div>
6067
6068     <div class="entry">
6069       <div class="title">
6070         <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>
6071       </div>
6072       <div class="date">
6073          6th May 2010
6074       </div>
6075       <div class="body">
6076         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
6077 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
6078 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
6079 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
6080 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6081 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
6082 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
6083
6084 <blockquote><pre>
6085 CONCURRENCY=makefile
6086 </pre></blockquote>
6087
6088 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
6089 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
6090 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
6091 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
6092 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
6093 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
6094 make this happen.</p>
6095
6096 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
6097 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
6098 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
6099 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
6100 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
6101
6102 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
6103 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
6104 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
6105 fix the remaining issues.</p>
6106
6107 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
6108 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
6109 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
6110 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
6111
6112       </div>
6113       <div class="tags">
6114
6115
6116         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>.
6117
6118
6119       </div>
6120     </div>
6121     <div class="padding"></div>
6122
6123     <div class="entry">
6124       <div class="title">
6125         <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>
6126       </div>
6127       <div class="date">
6128         27th July 2009
6129       </div>
6130       <div class="body">
6131         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
6132 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
6133 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
6134 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
6135 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
6136 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
6137 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
6138
6139 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
6140 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
6141 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
6142
6143       </div>
6144       <div class="tags">
6145
6146
6147         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>.
6148
6149
6150       </div>
6151     </div>
6152     <div class="padding"></div>
6153
6154     <div class="entry">
6155       <div class="title">
6156         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
6157       </div>
6158       <div class="date">
6159         22nd July 2009
6160       </div>
6161       <div class="body">
6162         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
6163 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
6164 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
6165 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
6166 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
6167 the package up to date.</p>
6168
6169 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
6170 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
6171 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
6172 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
6173 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
6174 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
6175 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
6176 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
6177 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
6178 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
6179 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
6180 working on the future release.</p>
6181
6182 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
6183 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
6184
6185       </div>
6186       <div class="tags">
6187
6188
6189         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>.
6190
6191
6192       </div>
6193     </div>
6194     <div class="padding"></div>
6195
6196     <div class="entry">
6197       <div class="title">
6198         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
6199       </div>
6200       <div class="date">
6201         24th June 2009
6202       </div>
6203       <div class="body">
6204         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
6205 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
6206 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
6207 funded
6208 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
6209 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
6210 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
6211 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
6212 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
6213 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
6214
6215 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
6216 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
6217 boot:</p>
6218
6219 <ul>
6220
6221 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
6222
6223 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
6224    clock is in UTC.</li>
6225
6226 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
6227    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
6228    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
6229
6230 </ul>
6231
6232 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
6233 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
6234 Villegas</a>.
6235
6236 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
6237 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
6238 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
6239 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
6240 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
6241 using this.</p>
6242
6243 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
6244 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
6245 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
6246 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
6247 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
6248 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
6249 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
6250
6251       </div>
6252       <div class="tags">
6253
6254
6255         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>.
6256
6257
6258       </div>
6259     </div>
6260     <div class="padding"></div>
6261
6262     <div class="entry">
6263       <div class="title">
6264         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
6265       </div>
6266       <div class="date">
6267         17th May 2009
6268       </div>
6269       <div class="body">
6270         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
6271 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
6272 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
6273 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
6274 dager siden kom
6275 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
6276 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
6277 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
6278 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
6279 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
6280
6281 <blockquote>
6282 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
6283 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
6284 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
6285 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
6286 </blockquote>
6287
6288 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
6289 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
6290 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
6291 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
6292 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
6293
6294 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
6295 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
6296 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
6297
6298       </div>
6299       <div class="tags">
6300
6301
6302         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>.
6303
6304
6305       </div>
6306     </div>
6307     <div class="padding"></div>
6308
6309     <div class="entry">
6310       <div class="title">
6311         <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>
6312       </div>
6313       <div class="date">
6314          7th May 2009
6315       </div>
6316       <div class="body">
6317         <p>Kom over
6318 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
6319 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
6320 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
6321 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
6322 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
6323 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
6324 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
6325
6326       </div>
6327       <div class="tags">
6328
6329
6330         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>.
6331
6332
6333       </div>
6334     </div>
6335     <div class="padding"></div>
6336
6337     <div class="entry">
6338       <div class="title">
6339         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
6340       </div>
6341       <div class="date">
6342          2nd May 2009
6343       </div>
6344       <div class="body">
6345         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
6346 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
6347 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
6348 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
6349 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
6350 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
6351 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
6352 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
6353 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
6354 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
6355 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
6356 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
6357 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
6358 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
6359 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
6360 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
6361 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
6362 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
6363 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
6364 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
6365
6366 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
6367 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
6368 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
6369 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
6370 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
6371 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
6372 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
6373 betydelige.</p>
6374
6375       </div>
6376       <div class="tags">
6377
6378
6379         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>.
6380
6381
6382       </div>
6383     </div>
6384     <div class="padding"></div>
6385
6386     <div class="entry">
6387       <div class="title">
6388         <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>
6389       </div>
6390       <div class="date">
6391          2nd May 2009
6392       </div>
6393       <div class="body">
6394         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
6395 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
6396 do not yet know them.</p>
6397
6398 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
6399 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
6400 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
6401 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
6402 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
6403 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
6404 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
6405 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
6406 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
6407 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
6408 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
6409
6410 <p>The second one is
6411 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
6412 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
6413 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
6414 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
6415 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
6416 and the company behind it is running
6417 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
6418 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
6419 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
6420 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
6421 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
6422 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
6423 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
6424 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
6425
6426 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
6427 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
6428 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
6429 surrounded by today.</p>
6430
6431       </div>
6432       <div class="tags">
6433
6434
6435         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>.
6436
6437
6438       </div>
6439     </div>
6440     <div class="padding"></div>
6441
6442     <div class="entry">
6443       <div class="title">
6444         <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>
6445       </div>
6446       <div class="date">
6447         28th April 2009
6448       </div>
6449       <div class="body">
6450         <p>Julien Blache
6451 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
6452 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
6453 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
6454 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
6455 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
6456 properties.</p>
6457
6458       </div>
6459       <div class="tags">
6460
6461
6462         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6463
6464
6465       </div>
6466     </div>
6467     <div class="padding"></div>
6468
6469     <div class="entry">
6470       <div class="title">
6471         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html">Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications</a>
6472       </div>
6473       <div class="date">
6474         30th March 2009
6475       </div>
6476       <div class="body">
6477         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
6478 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
6479 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
6480 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
6481 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
6482 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
6483 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
6484 application.</p>
6485
6486 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
6487 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
6488 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
6489 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
6490 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
6491 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
6492 blocked from doing so.</p>
6493
6494 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
6495 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
6496 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
6497 requirements change.</p>
6498
6499 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
6500 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
6501 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
6502
6503       </div>
6504       <div class="tags">
6505
6506
6507         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>.
6508
6509
6510       </div>
6511     </div>
6512     <div class="padding"></div>
6513
6514     <div class="entry">
6515       <div class="title">
6516         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
6517       </div>
6518       <div class="date">
6519         29th March 2009
6520       </div>
6521       <div class="body">
6522         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
6523 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
6524 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
6525 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
6526 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
6527 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
6528 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
6529 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
6530 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
6531 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
6532 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
6533 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
6534 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
6535 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
6536 now. :)</p>
6537
6538       </div>
6539       <div class="tags">
6540
6541
6542         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>.
6543
6544
6545       </div>
6546     </div>
6547     <div class="padding"></div>
6548
6549     <div class="entry">
6550       <div class="title">
6551         <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>
6552       </div>
6553       <div class="date">
6554         29th March 2009
6555       </div>
6556       <div class="body">
6557         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
6558 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
6559 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
6560 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
6561 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
6562 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
6563
6564 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
6565 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
6566 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
6567 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
6568 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
6569 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
6570 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
6571 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
6572 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
6573 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
6574 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
6575 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
6576 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
6577
6578 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
6579 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
6580 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
6581 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
6582
6583 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
6584 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
6585
6586 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
6587 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
6588 new IETF work group?</p>
6589
6590       </div>
6591       <div class="tags">
6592
6593
6594         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>.
6595
6596
6597       </div>
6598     </div>
6599     <div class="padding"></div>
6600
6601     <div class="entry">
6602       <div class="title">
6603         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
6604       </div>
6605       <div class="date">
6606         15th February 2009
6607       </div>
6608       <div class="body">
6609         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
6610 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
6611 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
6612 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
6613 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
6614 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
6615 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
6616 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
6617 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
6618 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
6619 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
6620 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
6621
6622       </div>
6623       <div class="tags">
6624
6625
6626         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>.
6627
6628
6629       </div>
6630     </div>
6631     <div class="padding"></div>
6632
6633     <div class="entry">
6634       <div class="title">
6635         <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>
6636       </div>
6637       <div class="date">
6638          7th December 2008
6639       </div>
6640       <div class="body">
6641         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
6642 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
6643 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
6644 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
6645 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
6646 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
6647 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
6648 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
6649
6650 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
6651 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
6652 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
6653 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
6654 of these cards.</p>
6655
6656       </div>
6657       <div class="tags">
6658
6659
6660         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>.
6661
6662
6663       </div>
6664     </div>
6665     <div class="padding"></div>
6666
6667     <div class="entry">
6668       <div class="title">
6669         <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>
6670       </div>
6671       <div class="date">
6672         25th November 2008
6673       </div>
6674       <div class="body">
6675         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
6676 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
6677 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
6678 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
6679 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
6680 notes are available on
6681 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
6682 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
6683 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
6684 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
6685 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
6686 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
6687 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
6688 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
6689 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
6690
6691 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
6692 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
6693
6694       </div>
6695       <div class="tags">
6696
6697
6698         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>.
6699
6700
6701       </div>
6702     </div>
6703     <div class="padding"></div>
6704
6705     <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>
6706     <div id="sidebar">
6707
6708
6709
6710 <h2>Archive</h2>
6711 <ul>
6712
6713 <li>2013
6714 <ul>
6715
6716 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
6717
6718 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
6719
6720 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
6721
6722 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
6723
6724 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
6725
6726 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
6727
6728 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
6729
6730 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
6731
6732 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
6733
6734 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (2)</a></li>
6735
6736 </ul></li>
6737
6738 <li>2012
6739 <ul>
6740
6741 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
6742
6743 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
6744
6745 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
6746
6747 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
6748
6749 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
6750
6751 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
6752
6753 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
6754
6755 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
6756
6757 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
6758
6759 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
6760
6761 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
6762
6763 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
6764
6765 </ul></li>
6766
6767 <li>2011
6768 <ul>
6769
6770 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
6771
6772 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
6773
6774 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
6775
6776 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
6777
6778 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
6779
6780 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
6781
6782 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
6783
6784 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
6785
6786 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
6787
6788 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
6789
6790 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
6791
6792 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
6793
6794 </ul></li>
6795
6796 <li>2010
6797 <ul>
6798
6799 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
6800
6801 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
6802
6803 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
6804
6805 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
6806
6807 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
6808
6809 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
6810
6811 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
6812
6813 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
6814
6815 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
6816
6817 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
6818
6819 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
6820
6821 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
6822
6823 </ul></li>
6824
6825 <li>2009
6826 <ul>
6827
6828 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
6829
6830 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
6831
6832 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
6833
6834 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
6835
6836 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
6837
6838 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
6839
6840 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
6841
6842 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
6843
6844 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
6845
6846 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
6847
6848 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
6849
6850 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
6851
6852 </ul></li>
6853
6854 <li>2008
6855 <ul>
6856
6857 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
6858
6859 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
6860
6861 </ul></li>
6862
6863 </ul>
6864
6865
6866
6867 <h2>Tags</h2>
6868 <ul>
6869
6870  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
6871
6872  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
6873
6874  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
6875
6876  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
6877
6878  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (7)</a></li>
6879
6880  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
6881
6882  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
6883
6884  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (86)</a></li>
6885
6886  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (142)</a></li>
6887
6888  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
6889
6890  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
6891
6892  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
6893
6894  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (219)</a></li>
6895
6896  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
6897
6898  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
6899
6900  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
6901
6902  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (3)</a></li>
6903
6904  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
6905
6906  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (37)</a></li>
6907
6908  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
6909
6910  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
6911
6912  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
6913
6914  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
6915
6916  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
6917
6918  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
6919
6920  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (235)</a></li>
6921
6922  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (154)</a></li>
6923
6924  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (8)</a></li>
6925
6926  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
6927
6928  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (44)</a></li>
6929
6930  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (66)</a></li>
6931
6932  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
6933
6934  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
6935
6936  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
6937
6938  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (7)</a></li>
6939
6940  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
6941
6942  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
6943
6944  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
6945
6946  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (31)</a></li>
6947
6948  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
6949
6950  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
6951
6952  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (43)</a></li>
6953
6954  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
6955
6956  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (8)</a></li>
6957
6958  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (18)</a></li>
6959
6960  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
6961
6962  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
6963
6964  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (39)</a></li>
6965
6966  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
6967
6968  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (28)</a></li>
6969
6970 </ul>
6971
6972
6973     </div>
6974     <p style="text-align: right">
6975  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
6976 </p>
6977
6978   </body>
6979 </html>