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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/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         19th January 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
  32 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
  33 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
  34 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
  35 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
  36 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
  37 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
  38 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
  39 not a durable solution.
  40
  41 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
  42 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
  43
  44 <ul>
  45
  46 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
  47   than A4).</li>
  48 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
  49 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
  50 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
  51 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
  52 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
  53 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
  54 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
  55 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
  56 size).</li>
  57 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
  58   X.org packages.</li>
  59 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
  60   the time).
  61
  62 </ul>
  63
  64 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
  65 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
  66 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
  67 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
  68 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
  69 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
  70 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
  71 still be useful.</p>
  72
  73 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
  74 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
  75 <ahref="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
  76 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
  77 of the vendors listed on the <ahref="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
  78 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
  79
  80       </div>
  81       <div class="tags">
  82
  83
  84         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>.
  85
  86
  87       </div>
  88     </div>
  89     <div class="padding"></div>
  90
  91     <div class="entry">
  92       <div class="title">
  93         <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>
  94       </div>
  95       <div class="date">
  96         18th January 2013
  97       </div>
  98       <div class="body">
  99         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
 100 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
 101 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
 102 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
 103 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
 104 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
 105 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
 106
 107 <pre>
 108 #!/usr/bin/python
 109 import sys
 110 import apt
 111 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
 112     cache = apt.Cache()
 113     cache.open(None)
 114     thepkgs = []
 115     for pkg in cache:
 116         version = pkg.candidate
 117         if version is None:
 118             version = pkg.installed
 119         if version is None:
 120             continue
 121         record = version.record
 122         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
 123             continue
 124         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
 125         for t in mime_types:
 126             t = t.rstrip().strip()
 127             if t == mimetype:
 128                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
 129     return thepkgs
 130 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
 131 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
 132     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
 133 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
 134 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
 135     print "  %s" %pkg
 136 </pre>
 137
 138 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
 139
 140 <pre>
 141 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
 142 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
 143   gecko-mediaplayer
 144 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
 145 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
 146   browser-plugin-gnash
 147 %
 148 </pre>
 149
 150 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
 151 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
 152 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
 153 anyone working on adding it?</p>
 154
 155 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
 156 request for icweasel support for this feature is
 157 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
 158 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
 159 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
 160 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
 161
 162       </div>
 163       <div class="tags">
 164
 165
 166         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>.
 167
 168
 169       </div>
 170     </div>
 171     <div class="padding"></div>
 172
 173     <div class="entry">
 174       <div class="title">
 175         <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>
 176       </div>
 177       <div class="date">
 178         16th January 2013
 179       </div>
 180       <div class="body">
 181         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
 182 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
 183 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
 184 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
 185 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
 186 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
 187 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
 188 downloaded by the browser.</p>
 189
 190 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
 191 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
 192 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
 193 can be found on the
 194 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
 195 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
 196 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
 197 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
 198 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
 199
 200 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
 201
 202 <pre>
 203   count MIME type
 204   ----- -----------------------
 205      32 text/plain
 206      30 audio/mpeg
 207      29 image/png
 208      28 image/jpeg
 209      27 application/ogg
 210      26 audio/x-mp3
 211      25 image/tiff
 212      25 image/gif
 213      22 image/bmp
 214      22 audio/x-wav
 215      20 audio/x-flac
 216      19 audio/x-mpegurl
 217      18 video/x-ms-asf
 218      18 audio/x-musepack
 219      18 audio/x-mpeg
 220      18 application/x-ogg
 221      17 video/mpeg
 222      17 audio/x-scpls
 223      17 audio/ogg
 224      16 video/x-ms-wmv
 225 </pre>
 226
 227 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
 228
 229 <pre>
 230   count MIME type
 231   ----- -----------------------
 232      33 text/plain
 233      32 image/png
 234      32 image/jpeg
 235      29 audio/mpeg
 236      27 image/gif
 237      26 image/tiff
 238      26 application/ogg
 239      25 audio/x-mp3
 240      22 image/bmp
 241      21 audio/x-wav
 242      19 audio/x-mpegurl
 243      19 audio/x-mpeg
 244      18 video/mpeg
 245      18 audio/x-scpls
 246      18 audio/x-flac
 247      18 application/x-ogg
 248      17 video/x-ms-asf
 249      17 text/html
 250      17 audio/x-musepack
 251      16 image/x-xbitmap
 252 </pre>
 253
 254 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
 255
 256 <pre>
 257   count MIME type
 258   ----- -----------------------
 259      31 text/plain
 260      31 image/png
 261      31 image/jpeg
 262      29 audio/mpeg
 263      28 application/ogg
 264      27 image/gif
 265      26 image/tiff
 266      26 audio/x-mp3
 267      23 audio/x-wav
 268      22 image/bmp
 269      21 audio/x-flac
 270      20 audio/x-mpegurl
 271      19 audio/x-mpeg
 272      18 video/x-ms-asf
 273      18 video/mpeg
 274      18 audio/x-scpls
 275      18 application/x-ogg
 276      17 audio/x-musepack
 277      16 video/x-ms-wmv
 278      16 video/x-msvideo
 279 </pre>
 280
 281 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
 282 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
 283 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
 284 issues.</p>
 285
 286 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
 287 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
 288
 289       </div>
 290       <div class="tags">
 291
 292
 293         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>.
 294
 295
 296       </div>
 297     </div>
 298     <div class="padding"></div>
 299
 300     <div class="entry">
 301       <div class="title">
 302         <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>
 303       </div>
 304       <div class="date">
 305         15th January 2013
 306       </div>
 307       <div class="body">
 308         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
 309 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
 310 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
 311 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
 312 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
 313 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
 314 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
 315 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
 316 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
 317 packages.</p>
 318
 319 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
 320 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
 321 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
 322 modalias.</p>
 323
 324 <p><blockquote>
 325 Package: package-name
 326 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
 327 </blockquote></p>
 328
 329 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
 330 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
 331
 332 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
 333 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
 334
 335 <p><blockquote>
 336 Package: cheese
 337 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
 338 </blockquote></p>
 339
 340 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
 341 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
 342
 343 <p><blockquote>
 344 Package: pcmciautils
 345 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
 346 </blockquote></p>
 347
 348 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
 349 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
 350
 351 <p><blockquote>
 352 Package: colorhug-client
 353 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
 354 </blockquote></p>
 355
 356 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
 357 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
 358 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
 359
 360 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
 361 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
 362 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
 363 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
 364 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
 365 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
 366 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
 367 Raring.</p>
 368
 369 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
 370 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
 371 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
 372 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
 373 try the
 374 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
 375 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
 376 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
 377 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
 378
 379 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
 380 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
 381
 382 <p><blockquote>
 383 % ./hw-support-lookup
 384 <br>yubikey-personalization
 385 <br>%
 386 </blockquote></p>
 387
 388 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
 389 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
 390
 391 <p><blockquote>
 392 % ./hw-support-lookup
 393 <br>pcmciautils
 394 <br>%
 395 </blockquote></p>
 396
 397 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
 398 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
 399 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
 400
 401 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
 402 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
 403 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
 404 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
 405 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
 406 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
 407 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
 408 see if it work.</p>
 409
 410 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
 411 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
 412 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
 413 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
 414
 415       </div>
 416       <div class="tags">
 417
 418
 419         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>.
 420
 421
 422       </div>
 423     </div>
 424     <div class="padding"></div>
 425
 426     <div class="entry">
 427       <div class="title">
 428         <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>
 429       </div>
 430       <div class="date">
 431         14th January 2013
 432       </div>
 433       <div class="body">
 434         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
 435 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
 436 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
 437 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
 438 in
 439 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
 440 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
 441
 442 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
 443
 444 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
 445 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
 446 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
 447 &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;,
 448 &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
 449 &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;.
 450
 451 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
 452 this shell script:</p>
 453
 454 <pre>
 455 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
 456 </pre>
 457
 458 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
 459 using modinfo:</p>
 460
 461 <pre>
 462 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
 463 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
 464 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
 465 %
 466 </pre>
 467
 468 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
 469
 470 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
 471 Bridge memory controller:</p>
 472
 473 <p><blockquote>
 474 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
 475 </blockquote></p>
 476
 477 <p>This represent these values:</p>
 478
 479 <pre>
 480  v   00008086  (vendor)
 481  d   00002770  (device)
 482  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
 483  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
 484  bc  06        (bus class)
 485  sc  00        (bus subclass)
 486  i   00        (interface)
 487 </pre>
 488
 489 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
 490 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
 491 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
 492 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
 493
 494 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
 495 means.</p>
 496
 497 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
 498
 499 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
 500 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
 501
 502 <p><blockquote>
 503 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
 504 </blockquote></p>
 505
 506 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
 507
 508 <pre>
 509  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
 510  p    0001  (device product)
 511  d    0206  (bcddevice)
 512  dc     09  (device class)
 513  dsc    00  (device subclass)
 514  dp     00  (device protocol)
 515  ic     09  (interface class)
 516  isc    00  (interface subclass)
 517  ip     00  (interface protocol)
 518 </pre>
 519
 520 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
 521 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
 522 these alias entries show up:</p>
 523
 524 <p><blockquote>
 525 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
 526 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
 527 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
 528 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
 529 </blockquote></p>
 530
 531 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
 532 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
 533 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
 534
 535 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
 536
 537 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
 538 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
 539
 540 <p><blockquote>
 541 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
 542 </blockquote></p>
 543
 544 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
 545
 546 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
 547
 548 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
 549 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
 550 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
 551
 552 <p><blockquote>
 553 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
 554 </blockquote></p>
 555
 556 <p>The values present are</p>
 557
 558 <pre>
 559  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
 560  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
 561  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
 562  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
 563  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
 564  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
 565  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
 566  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
 567  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
 568  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
 569  ct   10             (chassis type)
 570  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
 571 </pre>
 572
 573 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
 574 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
 575
 576 <pre>
 577   3 Desktop
 578   4 Low Profile Desktop
 579   5 Pizza Box
 580   6 Mini Tower
 581   7 Tower
 582   8 Portable
 583   9 Laptop
 584  10 Notebook
 585  11 Hand Held
 586  12 Docking Station
 587  13 All In One
 588  14 Sub Notebook
 589  15 Space-saving
 590  16 Lunch Box
 591  17 Main Server Chassis
 592  18 Expansion Chassis
 593  19 Sub Chassis
 594  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
 595  21 Peripheral Chassis
 596  22 RAID Chassis
 597  23 Rack Mount Chassis
 598  24 Sealed-case PC
 599  25 Multi-system
 600  26 CompactPCI
 601  27 AdvancedTCA
 602  28 Blade
 603  29 Blade Enclosing
 604 </pre>
 605
 606 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
 607 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
 608 claim it is a desktop.</p>
 609
 610 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
 611
 612 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
 613 test machine:</p>
 614
 615 <p><blockquote>
 616 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
 617 </blockquote></p>
 618
 619 <p>The values present are</p>
 620
 621 <pre>
 622   ty  01  (type)
 623   pr  00  (prototype)
 624   id  00  (id)
 625   ex  00  (extra)
 626 </pre>
 627
 628 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
 629 the valid values are.</p>
 630
 631 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
 632
 633 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
 634 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
 635 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
 636 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
 637 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
 638 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
 639 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
 640
 641 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
 642
 643 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
 644 one can use the following shell script:</p>
 645
 646 <pre>
 647   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
 648     echo "$id" ; \
 649     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
 650   done
 651 </pre>
 652
 653 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
 654 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
 655
 656 <pre>
 657   acpi:ACPI0003:
 658     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
 659   acpi:device:
 660   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
 661   acpi:IBM0068:
 662     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
 663     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
 664     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
 665     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
 666   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
 667     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
 668     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
 669     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
 670   [...]
 671 </pre>
 672
 673 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
 674 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
 675 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
 676 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
 677
 678 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
 679 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
 680 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
 681
 682       </div>
 683       <div class="tags">
 684
 685
 686         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>.
 687
 688
 689       </div>
 690     </div>
 691     <div class="padding"></div>
 692
 693     <div class="entry">
 694       <div class="title">
 695         <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>
 696       </div>
 697       <div class="date">
 698         10th January 2013
 699       </div>
 700       <div class="body">
 701         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
 702 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
 703 Launcher and updated the Debian package
 704 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
 705 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
 706 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
 707 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
 708 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
 709 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
 710 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
 711 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
 712 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
 713 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
 714 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
 715 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
 716 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
 717 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
 718 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
 719
 720       </div>
 721       <div class="tags">
 722
 723
 724         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>.
 725
 726
 727       </div>
 728     </div>
 729     <div class="padding"></div>
 730
 731     <div class="entry">
 732       <div class="title">
 733         <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>
 734       </div>
 735       <div class="date">
 736          9th January 2013
 737       </div>
 738       <div class="body">
 739         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
 740 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
 741 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
 742 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
 743 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
 744 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
 745 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
 746 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
 747 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
 748 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
 749 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
 750
 751 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
 752 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
 753 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
 754 simple:
 755
 756 <ul>
 757
 758 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
 759   starting when a user log in.</li>
 760
 761 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
 762   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
 763
 764 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
 765   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
 766   packages.</li>
 767
 768 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
 769   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
 770
 771 </ul>
 772
 773 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
 774 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
 775 discover database to find packages and
 776 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
 777 packages.</p>
 778
 779 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
 780 draft package is now checked into
 781 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
 782 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
 783 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
 784 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
 785 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
 786 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
 787 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
 788 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
 789 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
 790 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
 791 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
 792 because of the freeze).</p>
 793
 794 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
 795 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
 796 inserted):</p>
 797
 798 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
 799
 800 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
 801 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
 802 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
 803
 804 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
 805 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
 806 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
 807 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
 808 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
 809 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
 810 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
 811
 812 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
 813 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
 814 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
 815 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
 816 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
 817 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
 818 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
 819 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
 820 not be installed?</p>
 821
 822 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
 823 please send me an email. :)</p>
 824
 825       </div>
 826       <div class="tags">
 827
 828
 829         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>.
 830
 831
 832       </div>
 833     </div>
 834     <div class="padding"></div>
 835
 836     <div class="entry">
 837       <div class="title">
 838         <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>
 839       </div>
 840       <div class="date">
 841          2nd January 2013
 842       </div>
 843       <div class="body">
 844         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
 845 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
 846 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
 847 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
 848 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
 849 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
 850 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
 851 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
 852 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
 853 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
 854
 855 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
 856 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
 857 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
 858
 859       </div>
 860       <div class="tags">
 861
 862
 863         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
 864
 865
 866       </div>
 867     </div>
 868     <div class="padding"></div>
 869
 870     <div class="entry">
 871       <div class="title">
 872         <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>
 873       </div>
 874       <div class="date">
 875         25th December 2012
 876       </div>
 877       <div class="body">
 878         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
 879 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
 880
 881 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
 882 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
 883 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
 884 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
 885 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
 886 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
 887 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
 888 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
 889 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
 890 name.</p>
 891
 892 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
 893 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
 894 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
 895
 896 <blockquote><pre>
 897 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
 898 cd bitcoin
 899 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
 900 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
 901 </pre></blockquote>
 902
 903 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
 904 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
 905 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
 906 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
 907 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
 908 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
 909 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
 910 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
 911 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
 912
 913 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 914 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 915 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 916
 917       </div>
 918       <div class="tags">
 919
 920
 921         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>.
 922
 923
 924       </div>
 925     </div>
 926     <div class="padding"></div>
 927
 928     <div class="entry">
 929       <div class="title">
 930         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
 931       </div>
 932       <div class="date">
 933         21st December 2012
 934       </div>
 935       <div class="body">
 936         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
 937 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
 938 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
 939 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
 940 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
 941 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
 942 is now maintained by a
 943 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
 944 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
 945 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
 946 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
 947 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
 948 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
 949 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
 950 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
 951 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
 952 Corallo in a
 953 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
 954 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
 955 Debian package.</p>
 956
 957 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
 958 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
 959 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
 960 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
 961 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
 962 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
 963 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
 964 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
 965 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
 966 new version to unstable.
 967
 968 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
 969 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
 970 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
 971 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
 972 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
 973 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
 974 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
 975 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
 976 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
 977 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
 978 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
 979 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
 980 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
 981 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
 982 have not tested them.</p>
 983
 984 <p>My
 985 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
 986 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
 987 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
 988 years ago, as can be
 989 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
 990 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
 991 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
 992 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
 993 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
 994 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
 995 the same address as last time,
 996 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 997
 998       </div>
 999       <div class="tags">
1000
1001
1002         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>.
1003
1004
1005       </div>
1006     </div>
1007     <div class="padding"></div>
1008
1009     <div class="entry">
1010       <div class="title">
1011         <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>
1012       </div>
1013       <div class="date">
1014          7th September 2012
1015       </div>
1016       <div class="body">
1017         <p>As I
1018 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
1019 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
1020 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
1021 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
1022 repository for the project</a>.</p>
1023
1024 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
1025 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
1026 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
1027 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
1028
1029 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
1030 PostScript formats at
1031 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
1032 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
1033
1034       </div>
1035       <div class="tags">
1036
1037
1038         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>.
1039
1040
1041       </div>
1042     </div>
1043     <div class="padding"></div>
1044
1045     <div class="entry">
1046       <div class="title">
1047         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
1048       </div>
1049       <div class="date">
1050         16th August 2012
1051       </div>
1052       <div class="body">
1053         <p>I dag fyller
1054 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
1055 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
1056 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
1057
1058       </div>
1059       <div class="tags">
1060
1061
1062         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>.
1063
1064
1065       </div>
1066     </div>
1067     <div class="padding"></div>
1068
1069     <div class="entry">
1070       <div class="title">
1071         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
1072       </div>
1073       <div class="date">
1074         24th June 2012
1075       </div>
1076       <div class="body">
1077         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
1078 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
1079 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
1080 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
1081 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
1082 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
1083 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
1084 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
1085 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
1086 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
1087 missing in my book.</p>
1088
1089 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
1090 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
1091 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
1092 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
1093 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
1094 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
1095 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
1096
1097       </div>
1098       <div class="tags">
1099
1100
1101         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>.
1102
1103
1104       </div>
1105     </div>
1106     <div class="padding"></div>
1107
1108     <div class="entry">
1109       <div class="title">
1110         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
1111       </div>
1112       <div class="date">
1113         21st November 2011
1114       </div>
1115       <div class="body">
1116         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
1117 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
1118 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
1119 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
1120 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
1121 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
1122 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
1123 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
1124 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
1125 the tools to do so.</p>
1126
1127 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
1128 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
1129 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
1130 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
1131
1132 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
1133 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
1134 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
1135 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
1136 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
1137 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
1138 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
1139 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
1140
1141 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
1142 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
1143 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
1144
1145 <p><pre>
1146 #!/usr/bin/perl
1147 use strict;
1148 use warnings;
1149 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
1150 BEGIN {
1151     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
1152     my %rhelmodules = (
1153         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
1154         );
1155     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
1156         eval "use $module;";
1157         if ($@) {
1158             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
1159             system("yum install -y $pkg");
1160             eval "use $module;";
1161         }
1162     }
1163 }
1164 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
1165
1166 upgrade_dell();
1167
1168 exit 0;
1169
1170 sub run_firmware_script {
1171     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
1172     unless ($script) {
1173         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
1174         exit 1
1175     }
1176     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
1177
1178     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
1179         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
1180     } else {
1181         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
1182     }
1183 }
1184
1185 sub run_firmware_scripts {
1186     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
1187     # Run firmware packages
1188     for my $dir (@dirs) {
1189         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
1190         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
1191         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
1192             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
1193             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
1194         }
1195         closedir $dh;
1196     }
1197 }
1198
1199 sub download {
1200     my $url = shift;
1201     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
1202     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
1203 }
1204
1205 sub upgrade_dell {
1206     my @dirs;
1207     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
1208     chomp $product;
1209
1210     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
1211
1212         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
1213         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
1214
1215         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
1216             CLEANUP => 1
1217             );
1218         chdir($tmpdir);
1219         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
1220         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
1221         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
1222         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
1223         my $fwopts = "-q";
1224         if (@paths) {
1225             for my $url (@paths) {
1226                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
1227             }
1228             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
1229         } else {
1230             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
1231             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
1232         }
1233         chdir('/');
1234     } else {
1235         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
1236         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
1237     }
1238 }
1239
1240 sub fetch_dell_fw {
1241     my $path = shift;
1242     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
1243     download($url);
1244 }
1245
1246 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
1247 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
1248 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
1249 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
1250     my $filename = shift;
1251
1252     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
1253     chomp $product;
1254     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
1255
1256     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
1257
1258     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
1259     my @paths;
1260     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
1261         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
1262         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
1263         my $oscode;
1264         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
1265             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
1266         } else {
1267             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
1268         }
1269         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
1270         {
1271             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
1272         }
1273     }
1274     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
1275         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
1276
1277         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
1278         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
1279
1280         my $cpath = $component->{path};
1281         for my $path (@paths) {
1282             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
1283                 push(@paths, $cpath);
1284             }
1285         }
1286     }
1287     return @paths;
1288 }
1289 </pre>
1290
1291 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
1292 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
1293 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
1294 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
1295 outdated.</p>
1296
1297       </div>
1298       <div class="tags">
1299
1300
1301         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>.
1302
1303
1304       </div>
1305     </div>
1306     <div class="padding"></div>
1307
1308     <div class="entry">
1309       <div class="title">
1310         <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>
1311       </div>
1312       <div class="date">
1313          4th August 2011
1314       </div>
1315       <div class="body">
1316         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
1317 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
1318 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
1319 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
1320 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
1321 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
1322 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
1323 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
1324 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
1325
1326 <p><blockquote>
1327 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
1328 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
1329 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
1330 </blockquote></p>
1331
1332 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
1333 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
1334 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
1335 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
1336 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
1337 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
1338 hard to explain.</p>
1339
1340 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
1341 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
1342 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
1343 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
1344 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
1345 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
1346 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
1347 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
1348 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
1349 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
1350 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
1351 mode).</p>
1352
1353 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
1354 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
1355 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
1356 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
1357 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
1358 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
1359 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
1360 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
1361 after visiting single user mode.</p>
1362
1363 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
1364 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
1365 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
1366 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
1367 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
1368 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
1369 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
1370 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
1371
1372 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
1373 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
1374 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
1375
1376       </div>
1377       <div class="tags">
1378
1379
1380         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>.
1381
1382
1383       </div>
1384     </div>
1385     <div class="padding"></div>
1386
1387     <div class="entry">
1388       <div class="title">
1389         <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>
1390       </div>
1391       <div class="date">
1392         30th July 2011
1393       </div>
1394       <div class="body">
1395         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
1396 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
1397 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
1398 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
1399 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
1400 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
1401 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
1402 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
1403 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
1404 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
1405 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
1406 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
1407 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
1408
1409 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
1410 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
1411 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
1412 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
1413 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
1414 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
1415 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
1416 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
1417 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
1418
1419 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
1420 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
1421 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
1422 is presented.</p>
1423
1424 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
1425 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
1426 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
1427 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
1428 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
1429 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
1430 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
1431 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
1432 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
1433 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
1434 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
1435 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
1436 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
1437 find time to push this forward.</p>
1438
1439       </div>
1440       <div class="tags">
1441
1442
1443         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>.
1444
1445
1446       </div>
1447     </div>
1448     <div class="padding"></div>
1449
1450     <div class="entry">
1451       <div class="title">
1452         <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>
1453       </div>
1454       <div class="date">
1455         29th July 2011
1456       </div>
1457       <div class="body">
1458         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
1459 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
1460 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
1461 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
1462 issues.</p>
1463
1464 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
1465 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
1466 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
1467
1468 <ol>
1469
1470 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
1471 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
1472 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
1473 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
1474 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
1475 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
1476 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
1477 Debian.</li>
1478
1479 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
1480 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
1481 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
1482 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
1483 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
1484 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
1485 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
1486 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
1487 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
1488 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
1489 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
1490 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
1491 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
1492
1493 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
1494 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
1495 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
1496 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
1497 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
1498 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
1499 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
1500 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
1501 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
1502 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
1503
1504 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
1505 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
1506 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
1507 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
1508 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
1509 latter behaviour.</li>
1510
1511 </ol>
1512
1513 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
1514 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
1515 it do not matter much.</p>
1516
1517 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
1518 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
1519 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
1520
1521       </div>
1522       <div class="tags">
1523
1524
1525         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>.
1526
1527
1528       </div>
1529     </div>
1530     <div class="padding"></div>
1531
1532     <div class="entry">
1533       <div class="title">
1534         <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>
1535       </div>
1536       <div class="date">
1537         26th July 2011
1538       </div>
1539       <div class="body">
1540         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
1541 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
1542 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
1543 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
1544 security support for a few years.</p>
1545
1546 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
1547 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
1548 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
1549 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
1550 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
1551 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
1552 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
1553 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
1554 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
1555 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
1556 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
1557 easier in the future.</p>
1558
1559 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
1560 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
1561 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
1562 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
1563 do not have time for.</p>
1564
1565       </div>
1566       <div class="tags">
1567
1568
1569         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>.
1570
1571
1572       </div>
1573     </div>
1574     <div class="padding"></div>
1575
1576     <div class="entry">
1577       <div class="title">
1578         <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>
1579       </div>
1580       <div class="date">
1581          3rd April 2011
1582       </div>
1583       <div class="body">
1584         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
1585 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
1586 update in English.</p>
1587
1588 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
1589 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
1590 of the British service
1591 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
1592 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
1593 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
1594 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
1595 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
1596 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
1597 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
1598 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
1599 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
1600 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
1601 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
1602 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
1603 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
1604
1605 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
1606 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
1607 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
1608 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
1609 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
1610 public infrastructure.</p>
1611
1612 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
1613 such service?</p>
1614
1615       </div>
1616       <div class="tags">
1617
1618
1619         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>.
1620
1621
1622       </div>
1623     </div>
1624     <div class="padding"></div>
1625
1626     <div class="entry">
1627       <div class="title">
1628         <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>
1629       </div>
1630       <div class="date">
1631         28th January 2011
1632       </div>
1633       <div class="body">
1634         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
1635 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
1636 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
1637 available on the Internet, and check our locally
1638 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
1639 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
1640 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
1641 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
1642 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
1643 out which security holes were present in our free software
1644 collection.</p>
1645
1646 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
1647 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
1648 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
1649 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
1650 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
1651 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
1652 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
1653 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
1654 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
1655 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
1656 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
1657 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
1658 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
1659 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
1660 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
1661 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
1662
1663 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
1664 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
1665 check out, one could look up
1666 <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
1667 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
1668 The most recent one is
1669 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
1670 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
1671 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
1672
1673 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
1674 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
1675 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
1676 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
1677 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
1678 security issues out.</p>
1679
1680 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
1681 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
1682 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
1683 RHEL is providing
1684 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
1685 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
1686 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
1687
1688 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
1689 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
1690 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
1691 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
1692 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
1693 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
1694 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
1695 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
1696 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
1697 established soon.</p>
1698
1699 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
1700 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
1701 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
1702 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
1703 for their packages.</p>
1704
1705       </div>
1706       <div class="tags">
1707
1708
1709         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>.
1710
1711
1712       </div>
1713     </div>
1714     <div class="padding"></div>
1715
1716     <div class="entry">
1717       <div class="title">
1718         <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>
1719       </div>
1720       <div class="date">
1721         23rd January 2011
1722       </div>
1723       <div class="body">
1724         <p>In the
1725 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
1726 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
1727 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
1728 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
1729 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
1730 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
1731 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
1732 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
1733 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
1734 one of my machines like this:</p>
1735
1736 <pre>
1737 loaded modules:
1738 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
1739 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
1740 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
1741 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
1742 10de:03ec pata_amd
1743 10de:03f6 sata_nv
1744 1022:1103 k8temp
1745 109e:036e bttv
1746 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
1747 11ab:4364 sky2
1748 </pre>
1749
1750 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
1751 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
1752
1753 <pre>
1754 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
1755     echo loaded pci modules:
1756     (
1757         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
1758         for address in * ; do
1759             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
1760                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
1761                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
1762                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
1763                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
1764                     echo "$id $module"
1765                 fi
1766             fi
1767         done
1768     )
1769     echo
1770 fi
1771 </pre>
1772
1773 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
1774 mappings:</p>
1775
1776 <pre>
1777 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
1778     echo loaded usb modules:
1779     (
1780         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
1781         for address in * ; do
1782             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
1783                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
1784                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
1785                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
1786                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
1787                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
1788                         echo "$id $module"
1789                     fi
1790                 fi
1791             fi
1792         done
1793     )
1794     echo
1795 fi
1796 </pre>
1797
1798 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
1799 well.</p>
1800
1801       </div>
1802       <div class="tags">
1803
1804
1805         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>.
1806
1807
1808       </div>
1809     </div>
1810     <div class="padding"></div>
1811
1812     <div class="entry">
1813       <div class="title">
1814         <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>
1815       </div>
1816       <div class="date">
1817         22nd December 2010
1818       </div>
1819       <div class="body">
1820         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
1821 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
1822 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
1823 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
1824 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
1825 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
1826 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
1827 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
1828 university.</p>
1829
1830 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
1831 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
1832 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
1833 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
1834 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
1835 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
1836 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
1837 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
1838
1839 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
1840 I perform on a new model.</p>
1841
1842 <ul>
1843
1844 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
1845 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
1846 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
1847
1848 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
1849 installation, X.org is working.</li>
1850
1851 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
1852 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
1853 reported by the program.</li>
1854
1855 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
1856 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
1857 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
1858 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
1859 normally test this by playing
1860 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
1861 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
1862
1863 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
1864 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
1865
1866 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
1867 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
1868
1869 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
1870 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
1871
1872 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
1873 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
1874 few.</li>
1875
1876 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
1877 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
1878 notice this.</li>
1879
1880 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
1881 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
1882 resume.</li>
1883
1884 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
1885 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
1886 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
1887 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
1888 not.</li>
1889
1890 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
1891 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
1892 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
1893 existence.</li>
1894
1895 </ul>
1896
1897 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
1898 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
1899 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
1900 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
1901 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
1902 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
1903 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
1904 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
1905
1906       </div>
1907       <div class="tags">
1908
1909
1910         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>.
1911
1912
1913       </div>
1914     </div>
1915     <div class="padding"></div>
1916
1917     <div class="entry">
1918       <div class="title">
1919         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
1920       </div>
1921       <div class="date">
1922         11th December 2010
1923       </div>
1924       <div class="body">
1925         <p>As I continue to explore
1926 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
1927 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
1928 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
1929
1930 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
1931 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
1932 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
1933 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
1934 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
1935 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
1936 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
1937 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
1938 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
1939 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
1940 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
1941 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
1942 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
1943 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
1944 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
1945 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
1946 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
1947 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
1948 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
1949 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
1950
1951 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
1952 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
1953 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
1954 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
1955 If the Skolelinux foundation
1956 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
1957 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
1958 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
1959 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
1960 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
1961 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
1962 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
1963 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
1964
1965 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
1966 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
1967 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
1968 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
1969 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
1970 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
1971 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
1972 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
1973 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
1974 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
1975 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
1976 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
1977 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
1978 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
1979 currencies.</p>
1980
1981 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
1982 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
1983 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
1984 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
1985 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
1986 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
1987 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
1988 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
1989 BitCoins.  Check out
1990 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
1991 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
1992 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
1993 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
1994 yet.</p>
1995
1996 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
1997 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
1998 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
1999 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
2000 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
2001
2002       </div>
2003       <div class="tags">
2004
2005
2006         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>.
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/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
2016       </div>
2017       <div class="date">
2018         10th December 2010
2019       </div>
2020       <div class="body">
2021         <p>With this weeks lawless
2022 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
2023 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
2024 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
2025 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
2026 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
2027 A blog post from
2028 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
2029 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
2030 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
2031 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
2032 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
2033 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
2034 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
2035
2036 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
2037 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
2038 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
2039 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
2040 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
2041 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
2042 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
2043 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
2044 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
2045 Debian</a> soon.</p>
2046
2047 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
2048 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
2049 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
2050 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
2051 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
2052 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
2053 you can even get
2054 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
2055 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
2056 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
2057 on the current exchange rates.</p>
2058
2059 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
2060 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
2061 donations to the address
2062 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
2063
2064       </div>
2065       <div class="tags">
2066
2067
2068         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>.
2069
2070
2071       </div>
2072     </div>
2073     <div class="padding"></div>
2074
2075     <div class="entry">
2076       <div class="title">
2077         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
2078       </div>
2079       <div class="date">
2080         27th November 2010
2081       </div>
2082       <div class="body">
2083         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
2084 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
2085 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
2086 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
2087 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
2088 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
2089 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
2090 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
2091
2092 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
2093 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
2094 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
2095 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
2096 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
2097 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
2098 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
2099 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
2100 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
2101 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
2102 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
2103
2104 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
2105 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
2106 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
2107 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
2108 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
2109 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
2110 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
2111 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
2112 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
2113 what is going on.</p>
2114
2115       </div>
2116       <div class="tags">
2117
2118
2119         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>.
2120
2121
2122       </div>
2123     </div>
2124     <div class="padding"></div>
2125
2126     <div class="entry">
2127       <div class="title">
2128         <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>
2129       </div>
2130       <div class="date">
2131         22nd November 2010
2132       </div>
2133       <div class="body">
2134         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
2135 upgrade testing of the
2136 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
2137 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
2138 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
2139 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
2140
2141 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
2142
2143 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
2144
2145 <blockquote><p>
2146   apache2.2-bin
2147   aptdaemon
2148   baobab
2149   binfmt-support
2150   browser-plugin-gnash
2151   cheese-common
2152   cli-common
2153   cups-pk-helper
2154   dmz-cursor-theme
2155   empathy
2156   empathy-common
2157   freedesktop-sound-theme
2158   freeglut3
2159   gconf-defaults-service
2160   gdm-themes
2161   gedit-plugins
2162   geoclue
2163   geoclue-hostip
2164   geoclue-localnet
2165   geoclue-manual
2166   geoclue-yahoo
2167   gnash
2168   gnash-common
2169   gnome
2170   gnome-backgrounds
2171   gnome-cards-data
2172   gnome-codec-install
2173   gnome-core
2174   gnome-desktop-environment
2175   gnome-disk-utility
2176   gnome-screenshot
2177   gnome-search-tool
2178   gnome-session-canberra
2179   gnome-system-log
2180   gnome-themes-extras
2181   gnome-themes-more
2182   gnome-user-share
2183   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
2184   gstreamer0.10-tools
2185   gtk2-engines
2186   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
2187   gtk2-engines-smooth
2188   hamster-applet
2189   libapache2-mod-dnssd
2190   libapr1
2191   libaprutil1
2192   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
2193   libaprutil1-ldap
2194   libart2.0-cil
2195   libboost-date-time1.42.0
2196   libboost-python1.42.0
2197   libboost-thread1.42.0
2198   libchamplain-0.4-0
2199   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
2200   libcheese-gtk18
2201   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
2202   libcryptui0
2203   libdiscid0
2204   libelf1
2205   libepc-1.0-2
2206   libepc-common
2207   libepc-ui-1.0-2
2208   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
2209   libfreerdp0
2210   libgconf2.0-cil
2211   libgdata-common
2212   libgdata7
2213   libgdu-gtk0
2214   libgee2
2215   libgeoclue0
2216   libgexiv2-0
2217   libgif4
2218   libglade2.0-cil
2219   libglib2.0-cil
2220   libgmime2.4-cil
2221   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
2222   libgnome2.24-cil
2223   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
2224   libgpod-common
2225   libgpod4
2226   libgtk2.0-cil
2227   libgtkglext1
2228   libgtksourceview2.0-common
2229   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
2230   libmono-addins0.2-cil
2231   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
2232   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
2233   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
2234   libmono-posix2.0-cil
2235   libmono-security2.0-cil
2236   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
2237   libmono-system2.0-cil
2238   libmtp8
2239   libmusicbrainz3-6
2240   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
2241   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
2242   libopal3.6.8
2243   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
2244   libpt2.6.7
2245   libpython2.6
2246   librpm1
2247   librpmio1
2248   libsdl1.2debian
2249   libsrtp0
2250   libssh-4
2251   libtelepathy-farsight0
2252   libtelepathy-glib0
2253   libtidy-0.99-0
2254   media-player-info
2255   mesa-utils
2256   mono-2.0-gac
2257   mono-gac
2258   mono-runtime
2259   nautilus-sendto
2260   nautilus-sendto-empathy
2261   p7zip-full
2262   pkg-config
2263   python-aptdaemon
2264   python-aptdaemon-gtk
2265   python-axiom
2266   python-beautifulsoup
2267   python-bugbuddy
2268   python-clientform
2269   python-coherence
2270   python-configobj
2271   python-crypto
2272   python-cupshelpers
2273   python-elementtree
2274   python-epsilon
2275   python-evolution
2276   python-feedparser
2277   python-gdata
2278   python-gdbm
2279   python-gst0.10
2280   python-gtkglext1
2281   python-gtksourceview2
2282   python-httplib2
2283   python-louie
2284   python-mako
2285   python-markupsafe
2286   python-mechanize
2287   python-nevow
2288   python-notify
2289   python-opengl
2290   python-openssl
2291   python-pam
2292   python-pkg-resources
2293   python-pyasn1
2294   python-pysqlite2
2295   python-rdflib
2296   python-serial
2297   python-tagpy
2298   python-twisted-bin
2299   python-twisted-conch
2300   python-twisted-core
2301   python-twisted-web
2302   python-utidylib
2303   python-webkit
2304   python-xdg
2305   python-zope.interface
2306   remmina
2307   remmina-plugin-data
2308   remmina-plugin-rdp
2309   remmina-plugin-vnc
2310   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
2311   rhythmbox-plugins
2312   rpm-common
2313   rpm2cpio
2314   seahorse-plugins
2315   shotwell
2316   software-center
2317   system-config-printer-udev
2318   telepathy-gabble
2319   telepathy-mission-control-5
2320   telepathy-salut
2321   tomboy
2322   totem
2323   totem-coherence
2324   totem-mozilla
2325   totem-plugins
2326   transmission-common
2327   xdg-user-dirs
2328   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
2329   xserver-xephyr
2330 </p></blockquote>
2331
2332 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
2333
2334 <blockquote><p>
2335   cheese
2336   ekiga
2337   eog
2338   epiphany-extensions
2339   evolution-exchange
2340   fast-user-switch-applet
2341   file-roller
2342   gcalctool
2343   gconf-editor
2344   gdm
2345   gedit
2346   gedit-common
2347   gnome-games
2348   gnome-games-data
2349   gnome-nettool
2350   gnome-system-tools
2351   gnome-themes
2352   gnuchess
2353   gucharmap
2354   guile-1.8-libs
2355   libavahi-ui0
2356   libdmx1
2357   libgalago3
2358   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
2359   libgtksourceview2.0-0
2360   liblircclient0
2361   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
2362   libspeexdsp1
2363   libsvga1
2364   rhythmbox
2365   seahorse
2366   sound-juicer
2367   system-config-printer
2368   totem-common
2369   transmission-gtk
2370   vinagre
2371   vino
2372 </p></blockquote>
2373
2374 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
2375
2376 <blockquote><p>
2377   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
2378 </p></blockquote>
2379
2380 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
2381
2382 <blockquote><p>
2383 [nothing]
2384 </p></blockquote>
2385
2386 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
2387
2388 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
2389
2390 <blockquote><p>
2391   ksmserver
2392 </p></blockquote>
2393
2394 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
2395
2396 <blockquote><p>
2397   kwin
2398   network-manager-kde
2399 </p></blockquote>
2400
2401 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
2402
2403 <blockquote><p>
2404   arts
2405   dolphin
2406   freespacenotifier
2407   google-gadgets-gst
2408   google-gadgets-xul
2409   kappfinder
2410   kcalc
2411   kcharselect
2412   kde-core
2413   kde-plasma-desktop
2414   kde-standard
2415   kde-window-manager
2416   kdeartwork
2417   kdeartwork-emoticons
2418   kdeartwork-style
2419   kdeartwork-theme-icon
2420   kdebase
2421   kdebase-apps
2422   kdebase-workspace
2423   kdebase-workspace-bin
2424   kdebase-workspace-data
2425   kdeeject
2426   kdelibs
2427   kdeplasma-addons
2428   kdeutils
2429   kdewallpapers
2430   kdf
2431   kfloppy
2432   kgpg
2433   khelpcenter4
2434   kinfocenter
2435   konq-plugins-l10n
2436   konqueror-nsplugins
2437   kscreensaver
2438   kscreensaver-xsavers
2439   ktimer
2440   kwrite
2441   libgle3
2442   libkde4-ruby1.8
2443   libkonq5
2444   libkonq5-templates
2445   libnetpbm10
2446   libplasma-ruby
2447   libplasma-ruby1.8
2448   libqt4-ruby1.8
2449   marble-data
2450   marble-plugins
2451   netpbm
2452   nuvola-icon-theme
2453   plasma-dataengines-workspace
2454   plasma-desktop
2455   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
2456   plasma-runners-addons
2457   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
2458   plasma-scriptengine-python
2459   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
2460   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
2461   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
2462   plasma-scriptengines
2463   plasma-wallpapers-addons
2464   plasma-widget-folderview
2465   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
2466   ruby
2467   sweeper
2468   update-notifier-kde
2469   xscreensaver-data-extra
2470   xscreensaver-gl
2471   xscreensaver-gl-extra
2472   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
2473 </p></blockquote>
2474
2475 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
2476
2477 <blockquote><p>
2478   ark
2479   google-gadgets-common
2480   google-gadgets-qt
2481   htdig
2482   kate
2483   kdebase-bin
2484   kdebase-data
2485   kdepasswd
2486   kfind
2487   klipper
2488   konq-plugins
2489   konqueror
2490   ksysguard
2491   ksysguardd
2492   libarchive1
2493   libcln6
2494   libeet1
2495   libeina-svn-06
2496   libggadget-1.0-0b
2497   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
2498   libgps19
2499   libkdecorations4
2500   libkephal4
2501   libkonq4
2502   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
2503   libkscreensaver5
2504   libksgrd4
2505   libksignalplotter4
2506   libkunitconversion4
2507   libkwineffects1a
2508   libmarblewidget4
2509   libntrack-qt4-1
2510   libntrack0
2511   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
2512   libplasmaclock4a
2513   libplasmagenericshell4
2514   libprocesscore4a
2515   libprocessui4a
2516   libqalculate5
2517   libqedje0a
2518   libqtruby4shared2
2519   libqzion0a
2520   libruby1.8
2521   libscim8c2a
2522   libsmokekdecore4-3
2523   libsmokekdeui4-3
2524   libsmokekfile3
2525   libsmokekhtml3
2526   libsmokekio3
2527   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
2528   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
2529   libsmokekparts3
2530   libsmokektexteditor3
2531   libsmokekutils3
2532   libsmokenepomuk3
2533   libsmokephonon3
2534   libsmokeplasma3
2535   libsmokeqtcore4-3
2536   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
2537   libsmokeqtgui4-3
2538   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
2539   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
2540   libsmokeqtscript4-3
2541   libsmokeqtsql4-3
2542   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
2543   libsmokeqttest4-3
2544   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
2545   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
2546   libsmokeqtxml4-3
2547   libsmokesolid3
2548   libsmokesoprano3
2549   libtaskmanager4a
2550   libtidy-0.99-0
2551   libweather-ion4a
2552   libxklavier16
2553   libxxf86misc1
2554   okteta
2555   oxygencursors
2556   plasma-dataengines-addons
2557   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
2558   plasma-widget-lancelot
2559   plasma-widgets-addons
2560   plasma-widgets-workspace
2561   polkit-kde-1
2562   ruby1.8
2563   systemsettings
2564   update-notifier-common
2565 </p></blockquote>
2566
2567 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
2568 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
2569 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
2570 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
2571
2572       </div>
2573       <div class="tags">
2574
2575
2576         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>.
2577
2578
2579       </div>
2580     </div>
2581     <div class="padding"></div>
2582
2583     <div class="entry">
2584       <div class="title">
2585         <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>
2586       </div>
2587       <div class="date">
2588         22nd November 2010
2589       </div>
2590       <div class="body">
2591         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
2592 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
2593 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
2594 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
2595 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
2596 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
2597 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
2598 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
2599 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
2600
2601 <p>I found
2602 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
2603 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
2604 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
2605 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
2606 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
2607 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
2608
2609 <pre>
2610 #!/bin/sh
2611
2612 # Based on
2613 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
2614
2615 set -e
2616 set -x
2617
2618 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
2619     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
2620     exit 1
2621 else
2622     host="$1"
2623 fi
2624
2625 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
2626     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
2627     exit 1
2628 fi
2629
2630 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
2631 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
2632 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
2633 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
2634
2635 img=$host.img
2636 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
2637 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
2638
2639 parted $img mklabel msdos
2640 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
2641 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
2642 parted $img set 1 boot on
2643
2644 modprobe dm-mod
2645 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
2646 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
2647
2648 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
2649 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
2650 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
2651
2652 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
2653 losetup -d /dev/loop0
2654 </pre>
2655
2656 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
2657 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
2658
2659 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
2660 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
2661 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
2662 seem to work just fine.</p>
2663
2664       </div>
2665       <div class="tags">
2666
2667
2668         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>.
2669
2670
2671       </div>
2672     </div>
2673     <div class="padding"></div>
2674
2675     <div class="entry">
2676       <div class="title">
2677         <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>
2678       </div>
2679       <div class="date">
2680         20th November 2010
2681       </div>
2682       <div class="body">
2683         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
2684 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
2685 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
2686 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
2687
2688 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
2689 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
2690 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
2691
2692 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
2693
2694 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
2695
2696 <blockquote><p>
2697   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
2698   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
2699   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
2700   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
2701   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
2702   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
2703   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
2704   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
2705   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
2706   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
2707   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
2708   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
2709   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
2710   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
2711   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
2712   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
2713   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
2714   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
2715   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
2716   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
2717   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
2718   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
2719   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
2720   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
2721   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
2722   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
2723   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
2724   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
2725   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
2726   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
2727   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
2728   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
2729   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
2730   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
2731   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
2732   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
2733   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
2734   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
2735   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
2736   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
2737   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
2738   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
2739   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
2740   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
2741   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
2742   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
2743   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
2744   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
2745   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
2746   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
2747   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
2748   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
2749   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
2750   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
2751   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
2752   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
2753   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
2754   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
2755   zip
2756 </p></blockquote>
2757
2758 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
2759
2760 <blockquote><p>
2761   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
2762   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
2763   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
2764   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
2765   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
2766   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
2767   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
2768   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
2769   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
2770   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
2771   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
2772   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
2773   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
2774   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
2775   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
2776   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
2777   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
2778   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
2779   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
2780   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
2781   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
2782   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
2783   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
2784   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
2785   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
2786   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
2787   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
2788   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
2789   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
2790 </p></blockquote>
2791
2792 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
2793
2794 <blockquote><p>
2795   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
2796 </p></blockquote>
2797
2798 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
2799
2800 <blockquote><p>
2801 [nothing]
2802 </p></blockquote>
2803
2804 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
2805
2806 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
2807
2808 <blockquote><p>
2809   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
2810   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
2811   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
2812   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
2813   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
2814   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
2815   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
2816   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
2817   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
2818   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
2819   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
2820   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
2821   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
2822   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
2823   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
2824   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
2825   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
2826   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
2827   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
2828   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
2829   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
2830   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
2831   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
2832   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
2833   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
2834   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
2835   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
2836   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
2837   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
2838   ttf-sazanami-gothic
2839 </p></blockquote>
2840
2841 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
2842
2843 <blockquote><p>
2844   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
2845   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
2846   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
2847   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
2848   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
2849   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
2850   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
2851   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
2852   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
2853   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
2854   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
2855   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
2856   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
2857   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
2858   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
2859   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
2860   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
2861   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
2862   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
2863   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
2864   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
2865   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
2866   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
2867   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
2868   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
2869   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
2870   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
2871   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
2872   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
2873   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
2874   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
2875   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
2876   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
2877 </p></blockquote>
2878
2879 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
2880
2881 <blockquote><p>
2882   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
2883   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
2884   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
2885   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
2886   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
2887   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
2888   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
2889 </p></blockquote>
2890
2891 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
2892
2893 <blockquote><p>
2894   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
2895 </p></blockquote>
2896
2897       </div>
2898       <div class="tags">
2899
2900
2901         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>.
2902
2903
2904       </div>
2905     </div>
2906     <div class="padding"></div>
2907
2908     <div class="entry">
2909       <div class="title">
2910         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
2911       </div>
2912       <div class="date">
2913         20th November 2010
2914       </div>
2915       <div class="body">
2916         <p>Answering
2917 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
2918 call from the Gnash project</a> for
2919 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
2920 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
2921 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
2922 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
2923 releases out more often.</p>
2924
2925 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
2926 I have considered setting up a <a
2927 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
2928 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
2929 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
2930 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
2931 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
2932 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
2933 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
2934 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
2935 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
2936 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
2937 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
2938 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
2939
2940       </div>
2941       <div class="tags">
2942
2943
2944         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>.
2945
2946
2947       </div>
2948     </div>
2949     <div class="padding"></div>
2950
2951     <div class="entry">
2952       <div class="title">
2953         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
2954       </div>
2955       <div class="date">
2956          9th November 2010
2957       </div>
2958       <div class="body">
2959         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
2960
2961 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
2962 3D linked in from
2963 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
2964 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
2965
2966       </div>
2967       <div class="tags">
2968
2969
2970         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>.
2971
2972
2973       </div>
2974     </div>
2975     <div class="padding"></div>
2976
2977     <div class="entry">
2978       <div class="title">
2979         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
2980       </div>
2981       <div class="date">
2982         24th October 2010
2983       </div>
2984       <div class="body">
2985         <p>Some updates.</p>
2986
2987 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
2988 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
2989 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
2990 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
2991 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
2992 :)</p>
2993
2994 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
2995 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
2996 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
2997 It is called
2998 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
2999 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
3000 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
3001 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
3002 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
3003 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
3004
3005 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
3006 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
3007 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
3008 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
3009 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
3010 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
3011 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
3012 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
3013 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
3014 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
3015
3016       </div>
3017       <div class="tags">
3018
3019
3020         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>.
3021
3022
3023       </div>
3024     </div>
3025     <div class="padding"></div>
3026
3027     <div class="entry">
3028       <div class="title">
3029         <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>
3030       </div>
3031       <div class="date">
3032          4th September 2010
3033       </div>
3034       <div class="body">
3035         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
3036 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
3037 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
3038 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
3039 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
3040 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
3041 installed.</p>
3042
3043 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
3044 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
3045 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
3046 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
3047 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
3048 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
3049 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
3050 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
3051 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
3052
3053 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
3054 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
3055 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
3056 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
3057 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
3058 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
3059 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
3060 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
3061 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
3062 pages they want to visit.</p>
3063
3064 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
3065 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
3066 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
3067 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
3068 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
3069 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
3070 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
3071 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
3072 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
3073 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
3074 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
3075
3076       </div>
3077       <div class="tags">
3078
3079
3080         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>.
3081
3082
3083       </div>
3084     </div>
3085     <div class="padding"></div>
3086
3087     <div class="entry">
3088       <div class="title">
3089         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
3090       </div>
3091       <div class="date">
3092         27th July 2010
3093       </div>
3094       <div class="body">
3095         <p>I discovered this while doing
3096 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
3097 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
3098 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
3099 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
3100 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
3101
3102 <p>An example is from todays
3103 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
3104 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
3105 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
3106 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
3107 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
3108 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
3109 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
3110
3111 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
3112
3113 <blockquote><pre>
3114 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
3115  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
3116   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
3117 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
3118  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
3119 </pre></blockquote>
3120
3121 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
3122 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
3123 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
3124 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
3125 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
3126 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
3127 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
3128 of dependency loops.</p>
3129
3130 <p>Thanks to
3131 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
3132 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
3133 dependencies
3134 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
3135 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
3136
3137 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
3138 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
3139 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
3140 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
3141 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
3142 it.</p>
3143
3144       </div>
3145       <div class="tags">
3146
3147
3148         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>.
3149
3150
3151       </div>
3152     </div>
3153     <div class="padding"></div>
3154
3155     <div class="entry">
3156       <div class="title">
3157         <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>
3158       </div>
3159       <div class="date">
3160         17th July 2010
3161       </div>
3162       <div class="body">
3163         <p>This is a
3164 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
3165 on my
3166 <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
3167 work</a> on
3168 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
3169 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
3170
3171 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
3172 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
3173 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
3174 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
3175
3176 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
3177 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
3178 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
3179
3180 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
3181
3182 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
3183 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
3184 the web.
3185
3186 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
3187 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
3188 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
3189 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
3190 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
3191 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
3192
3193 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
3194 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
3195 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
3196 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
3197 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
3198 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
3199 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
3200 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
3201 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
3202 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
3203 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
3204 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
3205 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
3206 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
3207 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
3208 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
3209
3210 <blockquote><pre>
3211 ldapsearch -h ldap \
3212   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
3213   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
3214   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
3215   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
3216   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
3217   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
3218
3219 ldapsearch -h ldap \
3220   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
3221   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
3222   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
3223   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
3224   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
3225 </pre></blockquote>
3226
3227 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
3228 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
3229 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
3230 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3231 also exist.</p>
3232
3233 <blockquote><pre>
3234 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3235 objectclass: top
3236 objectclass: dnsdomain
3237 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3238 dc: tjener
3239 arecord: 10.0.2.2
3240 associateddomain: tjener.intern
3241
3242 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3243 objectclass: top
3244 objectclass: dnsdomain2
3245 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3246 dc: 2
3247 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
3248 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
3249 </pre></blockquote>
3250
3251 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
3252 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
3253 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
3254 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
3255 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
3256 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
3257 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
3258 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
3259 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
3260 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
3261 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
3262 instead.</p>
3263
3264 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
3265 like this:</p>
3266
3267 <blockquote><pre>
3268 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
3269   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
3270   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
3271   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
3272   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
3273   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
3274
3275 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
3276   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
3277 </pre></blockquote>
3278
3279 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
3280 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
3281 reverse lookups.</p>
3282
3283 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
3284 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
3285 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
3286 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
3287
3288 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
3289 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
3290 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
3291
3292 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
3293 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
3294 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
3295 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
3296 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
3297
3298 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
3299 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
3300 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
3301 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
3302 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
3303
3304 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
3305 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
3306 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
3307 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
3308 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
3309 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
3310
3311 <blockquote><pre>
3312 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
3313     SUP top
3314     AUXILIARY
3315     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
3316           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
3317           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
3318           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
3319           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
3320     ))
3321 </pre></blockquote>
3322
3323 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
3324 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
3325 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
3326 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
3327 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
3328 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
3329
3330 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
3331
3332 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
3333 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
3334 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
3335 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
3336 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
3337
3338 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
3339 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
3340 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
3341 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
3342
3343 <blockquote><pre>
3344 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
3345 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
3346 </pre></blockquote>
3347
3348 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
3349 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
3350 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
3351 search result is this entry:</p>
3352
3353 <blockquote><pre>
3354 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3355 cn: dhcp
3356 objectClass: top
3357 objectClass: dhcpServer
3358 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3359 </pre></blockquote>
3360
3361 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
3362 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
3363 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
3364 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
3365 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
3366 The search result is this entry:</p>
3367
3368 <blockquote><pre>
3369 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3370 cn: DHCP Config
3371 objectClass: top
3372 objectClass: dhcpService
3373 objectClass: dhcpOptions
3374 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3375 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
3376 dhcpStatements: authoritative
3377 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
3378 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
3379 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
3380 </pre></blockquote>
3381
3382 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
3383 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
3384 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
3385 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
3386 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
3387 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
3388 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
3389 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
3390 related computer objects.</p>
3391
3392 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
3393 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
3394 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
3395 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
3396 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
3397 like:</p>
3398
3399 <blockquote><pre>
3400 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3401 cn: hostname
3402 objectClass: top
3403 objectClass: dhcpHost
3404 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
3405 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
3406 </pre></blockquote>
3407
3408 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
3409 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
3410 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
3411 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
3412 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
3413 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
3414 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
3415 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
3416 structural object class.
3417
3418 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
3419
3420 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
3421 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
3422 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
3423 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
3424 in the configuration.</p>
3425
3426 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
3427 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
3428 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
3429 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
3430 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
3431 structure.</p>
3432
3433 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
3434 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
3435
3436 <blockquote><pre>
3437 ou=services
3438   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
3439     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
3440     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
3441       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
3442         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
3443     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
3444       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
3445         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
3446     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
3447       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
3448 </pre></blockquote>
3449
3450 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
3451 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
3452 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
3453 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
3454
3455 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
3456 like this:</p>
3457
3458 <blockquote><pre>
3459 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3460 dc: hostname
3461 objectClass: top
3462 objectClass: dhcpHost
3463 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3464 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
3465 associateddomain: hostname.intern
3466 arecord: 10.11.12.13
3467 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
3468 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
3469 </pre></blockquote>
3470
3471 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
3472 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
3473 auxiliary object class.</p>
3474
3475       </div>
3476       <div class="tags">
3477
3478
3479         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>.
3480
3481
3482       </div>
3483     </div>
3484     <div class="padding"></div>
3485
3486     <div class="entry">
3487       <div class="title">
3488         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
3489       </div>
3490       <div class="date">
3491         14th July 2010
3492       </div>
3493       <div class="body">
3494         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
3495 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
3496 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
3497 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
3498 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
3499
3500 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
3501 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
3502
3503 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
3504 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
3505 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
3506 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
3507 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
3508 to a slave DNS server.</p>
3509
3510 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
3511 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
3512 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
3513 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
3514 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
3515 seem to work.</p>
3516
3517 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
3518 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
3519 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
3520 this:</p>
3521
3522 <blockquote><pre>
3523   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
3524   cn: hostname
3525   objectClass: dhcphost
3526   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
3527   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
3528   associateddomain: hostname.intern
3529   arecord: 10.11.12.13
3530   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
3531   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
3532   ldapconfigsound: Y
3533 </pre></blockquote>
3534
3535 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
3536 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
3537 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
3538 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
3539
3540 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
3541 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
3542 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
3543 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
3544 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
3545 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
3546 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
3547 might be a good place to put it.</p>
3548
3549 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
3550 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
3551
3552       </div>
3553       <div class="tags">
3554
3555
3556         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>.
3557
3558
3559       </div>
3560     </div>
3561     <div class="padding"></div>
3562
3563     <div class="entry">
3564       <div class="title">
3565         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
3566       </div>
3567       <div class="date">
3568         11th July 2010
3569       </div>
3570       <div class="body">
3571         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
3572 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
3573 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
3574 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
3575
3576 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
3577 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
3578 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
3579 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
3580 LTSP clients.</p>
3581
3582 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
3583 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
3584 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
3585
3586 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
3587 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
3588 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
3589
3590 <blockquote><pre>
3591 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
3592 #
3593 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
3594 #
3595 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
3596 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
3597 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
3598 #
3599 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
3600 # existence of attribute names.
3601 #
3602 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
3603 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
3604 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
3605 #
3606 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
3607 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
3608 #
3609 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
3610 #     SUP top
3611 #     AUXILIARY
3612 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
3613
3614 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
3615 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
3616     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
3617     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
3618         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
3619         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
3620             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
3621             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
3622             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
3623             # bass value on to clients
3624             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
3625         done
3626     done
3627 fi
3628 </pre></blockquote>
3629
3630 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
3631 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
3632 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
3633 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
3634 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
3635
3636 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
3637 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
3638
3639 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
3640 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
3641 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
3642 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
3643 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
3644 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
3645
3646       </div>
3647       <div class="tags">
3648
3649
3650         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>.
3651
3652
3653       </div>
3654     </div>
3655     <div class="padding"></div>
3656
3657     <div class="entry">
3658       <div class="title">
3659         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
3660       </div>
3661       <div class="date">
3662          9th July 2010
3663       </div>
3664       <div class="body">
3665         <p>Since
3666 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
3667 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
3668 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
3669 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
3670 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
3671 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
3672 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
3673 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
3674 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
3675 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
3676 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
3677 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
3678 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
3679
3680       </div>
3681       <div class="tags">
3682
3683
3684         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>.
3685
3686
3687       </div>
3688     </div>
3689     <div class="padding"></div>
3690
3691     <div class="entry">
3692       <div class="title">
3693         <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>
3694       </div>
3695       <div class="date">
3696          3rd July 2010
3697       </div>
3698       <div class="body">
3699         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
3700 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
3701 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
3702 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
3703 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
3704 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
3705 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
3706 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
3707
3708 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
3709 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
3710 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
3711 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
3712 publish the difference.</p>
3713
3714 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
3715
3716 <blockquote><p>
3717   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
3718   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
3719   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
3720   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
3721   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
3722   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
3723   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
3724   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
3725 </p></blockquote>
3726
3727 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
3728
3729 <blockquote><p>
3730   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
3731   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
3732   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
3733   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
3734   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
3735   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
3736   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
3737   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
3738   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
3739   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
3740   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
3741   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
3742   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
3743   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
3744   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
3745   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
3746   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
3747   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
3748   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
3749   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
3750 </p></blockquote>
3751
3752 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
3753
3754 <blockquote><p>
3755   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
3756   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
3757   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
3758   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
3759   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
3760   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
3761   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
3762   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
3763   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
3764   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
3765   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
3766   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
3767   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
3768   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
3769   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
3770   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
3771   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
3772   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
3773   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
3774   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
3775   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
3776 </p></blockquote>
3777
3778 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
3779
3780 <blockquote><p>
3781   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
3782   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
3783   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
3784 </p></blockquote>
3785
3786 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
3787 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
3788 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
3789 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
3790 the difference somewhat.
3791
3792       </div>
3793       <div class="tags">
3794
3795
3796         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>.
3797
3798
3799       </div>
3800     </div>
3801     <div class="padding"></div>
3802
3803     <div class="entry">
3804       <div class="title">
3805         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
3806       </div>
3807       <div class="date">
3808         28th June 2010
3809       </div>
3810       <div class="body">
3811         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
3812 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
3813 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
3814 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
3815 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
3816 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
3817 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
3818 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
3819 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
3820 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
3821
3822 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
3823 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
3824 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
3825 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
3826 released.</p>
3827
3828 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
3829 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
3830 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
3831 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
3832
3833 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
3834 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
3835
3836 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
3837 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
3838 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
3839 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
3840 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
3841
3842       </div>
3843       <div class="tags">
3844
3845
3846         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>.
3847
3848
3849       </div>
3850     </div>
3851     <div class="padding"></div>
3852
3853     <div class="entry">
3854       <div class="title">
3855         <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>
3856       </div>
3857       <div class="date">
3858         24th June 2010
3859       </div>
3860       <div class="body">
3861         <p>A while back, I
3862 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
3863 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
3864 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
3865 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
3866
3867 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
3868 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
3869 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
3870 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
3871
3872 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
3873 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
3874 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
3875 Debian Edu.</p>
3876
3877 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
3878 the
3879 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
3880 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
3881 available today from IETF.</p>
3882
3883 <pre>
3884 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
3885 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
3886 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
3887  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
3888         NAME 'dhcpHost'
3889         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
3890 -       SUP top
3891 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
3892         MUST cn
3893         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
3894         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
3895 </pre>
3896
3897 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
3898 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
3899 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
3900
3901 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
3902 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
3903
3904       </div>
3905       <div class="tags">
3906
3907
3908         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>.
3909
3910
3911       </div>
3912     </div>
3913     <div class="padding"></div>
3914
3915     <div class="entry">
3916       <div class="title">
3917         <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>
3918       </div>
3919       <div class="date">
3920         16th June 2010
3921       </div>
3922       <div class="body">
3923         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
3924 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
3925 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
3926 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
3927 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
3928 this:
3929
3930 <blockquote><pre>
3931 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
3932 tasksel --new-install
3933 </pre></blockquote>
3934
3935 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
3936 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
3937 any output what so ever.
3938
3939 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
3940 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
3941 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
3942 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
3943 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
3944 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
3945 code like this:
3946
3947 <blockquote><pre>
3948 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
3949 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
3950 $cmd
3951 </pre></blockquote>
3952
3953 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
3954 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
3955 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
3956 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
3957 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
3958 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
3959 installation.</p>
3960
3961 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
3962 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
3963 like this.</p>
3964
3965       </div>
3966       <div class="tags">
3967
3968
3969         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>.
3970
3971
3972       </div>
3973     </div>
3974     <div class="padding"></div>
3975
3976     <div class="entry">
3977       <div class="title">
3978         <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>
3979       </div>
3980       <div class="date">
3981         13th June 2010
3982       </div>
3983       <div class="body">
3984         <p>My
3985 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
3986 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
3987 finally made the upgrade logs available from
3988 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
3989 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
3990 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
3991 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
3992
3993 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
3994 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
3995 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
3996 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
3997 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
3998 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
3999 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
4000 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
4001
4002 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
4003 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
4004 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
4005 too surprising.</p>
4006
4007 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
4008 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
4009 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
4010 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
4011 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
4012 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
4013 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
4014 continue.</p>
4015
4016 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
4017 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
4018   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
4019   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
4020   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
4021   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
4022   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
4023   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
4024   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
4025   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
4026   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
4027   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
4028   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
4029   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
4030   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
4031   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4032   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
4033   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
4034   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
4035   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
4036   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
4037   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
4038   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
4039   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
4040   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
4041   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
4042   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
4043   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
4044   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
4045   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
4046
4047 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
4048
4049 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
4050   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
4051   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
4052   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
4053   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
4054   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
4055   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
4056   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
4057   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
4058   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
4059   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
4060   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
4061   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
4062   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
4063   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
4064   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
4065   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
4066   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
4067   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
4068   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
4069   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
4070   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
4071   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
4072   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
4073   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
4074   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
4075   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
4076   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
4077   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
4078   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4079   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
4080   zip</p>
4081
4082 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
4083
4084 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
4085   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
4086   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
4087   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
4088   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
4089   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
4090   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
4091   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
4092   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
4093   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
4094   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
4095   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
4096   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
4097   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
4098   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4099   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
4100   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
4101   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
4102   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
4103   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
4104   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
4105   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
4106   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
4107   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
4108   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
4109   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
4110   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
4111   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
4112
4113 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
4114 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
4115   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
4116   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
4117   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
4118   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
4119   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
4120   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
4121   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
4122   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
4123   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
4124   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
4125   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
4126   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
4127   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
4128   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
4129   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
4130   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
4131   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
4132   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
4133   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
4134   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
4135   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
4136   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
4137   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
4138   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
4139   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
4140   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
4141   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
4142   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
4143   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
4144   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
4145   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
4146   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
4147   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
4148   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
4149   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
4150   xulrunner-1.9</p>
4151
4152
4153       </div>
4154       <div class="tags">
4155
4156
4157         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>.
4158
4159
4160       </div>
4161     </div>
4162     <div class="padding"></div>
4163
4164     <div class="entry">
4165       <div class="title">
4166         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
4167       </div>
4168       <div class="date">
4169         11th June 2010
4170       </div>
4171       <div class="body">
4172         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
4173 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
4174 have been discovered and reported in the process
4175 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
4176 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
4177 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
4178 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
4179 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
4180
4181 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
4182 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
4183 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
4184 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
4185 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
4186 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
4187
4188 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
4189 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
4190 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
4191 is created.  The bug report
4192 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
4193 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
4194 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
4195 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
4196 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
4197 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
4198 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
4199 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
4200 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
4201 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
4202 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
4203 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
4204 Debian Squeeze.</p>
4205
4206 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
4207 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
4208 trick:</p>
4209
4210 <blockquote><pre>
4211 #!/bin/sh
4212 set -ex
4213
4214 if [ "$1" ] ; then
4215     desktop=$1
4216 else
4217     desktop=gnome
4218 fi
4219
4220 from=lenny
4221 to=squeeze
4222
4223 exec &lt; /dev/null
4224 unset LANG
4225 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
4226 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
4227 fuser -mv .
4228 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
4229 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
4230 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
4231 #!/bin/sh
4232 exit 101
4233 EOF
4234 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
4235 exit_cleanup() {
4236     umount $tmpdir/proc
4237 }
4238 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
4239 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
4240 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
4241
4242 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
4243
4244 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
4245 # to return the correct answers.
4246 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
4247     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
4248
4249 # Include the desktop and laptop task
4250 for test in desktop laptop ; do
4251     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
4252 #!/bin/sh
4253 exit 2
4254 EOF
4255     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
4256 done
4257
4258 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
4259 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
4260 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
4261 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
4262
4263 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
4264 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
4265 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
4266 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
4267 fuser -mv
4268 </pre></blockquote>
4269
4270 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
4271 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
4272 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
4273 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
4274 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
4275 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
4276
4277 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
4278 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
4279 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
4280 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
4281 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
4282 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
4283 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
4284
4285 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
4286 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
4287 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
4288 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
4289 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
4290 packages.</p>
4291
4292       </div>
4293       <div class="tags">
4294
4295
4296         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>.
4297
4298
4299       </div>
4300     </div>
4301     <div class="padding"></div>
4302
4303     <div class="entry">
4304       <div class="title">
4305         <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>
4306       </div>
4307       <div class="date">
4308          6th June 2010
4309       </div>
4310       <div class="body">
4311         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
4312 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
4313 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
4314 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
4315 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
4316 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
4317 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
4318
4319 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
4320 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
4321 COLUMNS):</p>
4322
4323 <blockquote><pre>
4324 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
4325 previous=N
4326 PREVLEVEL=
4327 RUNLEVEL=
4328 runlevel=S
4329 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
4330 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
4331 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
4332 </pre></blockquote>
4333
4334 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
4335 script.</p>
4336
4337 <blockquote><pre>
4338 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
4339 previous=N
4340 PREVLEVEL=N
4341 RUNLEVEL=S
4342 runlevel=S
4343 </pre></blockquote>
4344
4345 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
4346 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
4347 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
4348
4349 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
4350 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
4351 choice.</p>
4352
4353       </div>
4354       <div class="tags">
4355
4356
4357         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>.
4358
4359
4360       </div>
4361     </div>
4362     <div class="padding"></div>
4363
4364     <div class="entry">
4365       <div class="title">
4366         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
4367       </div>
4368       <div class="date">
4369          6th June 2010
4370       </div>
4371       <div class="body">
4372         <p>Via the
4373 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
4374 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
4375 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
4376 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
4377 following the standards wars of today.</p>
4378
4379       </div>
4380       <div class="tags">
4381
4382
4383         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>.
4384
4385
4386       </div>
4387     </div>
4388     <div class="padding"></div>
4389
4390     <div class="entry">
4391       <div class="title">
4392         <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>
4393       </div>
4394       <div class="date">
4395          3rd June 2010
4396       </div>
4397       <div class="body">
4398         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
4399 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
4400 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
4401 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
4402 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
4403
4404 <blockquote><pre>
4405 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
4406   vendor                    count
4407   Dell Computer Corporation     1
4408     PowerEdge 1750              1
4409   IBM                           1
4410     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
4411   Intel                         2
4412   [no-dmi-info]                 3
4413 maintainer:~#
4414 </pre></blockquote>
4415
4416 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
4417 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
4418 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
4419 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
4420 option to list the individual machines.</p>
4421
4422 <p>A larger list is
4423 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
4424 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
4425 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
4426 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
4427 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
4428 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
4429 collector.</p>
4430
4431       </div>
4432       <div class="tags">
4433
4434
4435         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>.
4436
4437
4438       </div>
4439     </div>
4440     <div class="padding"></div>
4441
4442     <div class="entry">
4443       <div class="title">
4444         <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>
4445       </div>
4446       <div class="date">
4447          1st June 2010
4448       </div>
4449       <div class="body">
4450         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
4451 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
4452 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
4453 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
4454 wait.</p>
4455
4456 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
4457 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
4458 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
4459 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
4460 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
4461 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
4462
4463 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
4464 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
4465 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
4466 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
4467 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
4468 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
4469 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
4470 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
4471
4472 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
4473
4474       </div>
4475       <div class="tags">
4476
4477
4478         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>.
4479
4480
4481       </div>
4482     </div>
4483     <div class="padding"></div>
4484
4485     <div class="entry">
4486       <div class="title">
4487         <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>
4488       </div>
4489       <div class="date">
4490         27th May 2010
4491       </div>
4492       <div class="body">
4493         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
4494 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
4495 issues are known and should be solved:
4496
4497 <p><ul>
4498
4499 <li>The wicd package seen to
4500 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
4501 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
4502 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
4503 seem to be on the case.</li>
4504
4505 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
4506 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
4507 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
4508 maintainer is on the case.</li>
4509
4510 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
4511 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
4512 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
4513 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
4514 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
4515 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
4516 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
4517 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
4518
4519 </ul></p>
4520
4521 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
4522 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
4523 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
4524 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
4525
4526 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
4527 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
4528 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
4529 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
4530
4531 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
4532
4533       </div>
4534       <div class="tags">
4535
4536
4537         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>.
4538
4539
4540       </div>
4541     </div>
4542     <div class="padding"></div>
4543
4544     <div class="entry">
4545       <div class="title">
4546         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
4547       </div>
4548       <div class="date">
4549         22nd May 2010
4550       </div>
4551       <div class="body">
4552         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
4553 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
4554 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
4555 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
4556
4557 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
4558 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
4559 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
4560 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
4561 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
4562 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
4563 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
4564 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
4565 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
4566 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
4567 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
4568 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
4569 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
4570 going to work.</p>
4571
4572 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
4573 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
4574 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
4575 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
4576 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
4577 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
4578 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
4579 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
4580 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
4581 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
4582 Edu.</p>
4583
4584 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
4585 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
4586 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
4587 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
4588 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
4589 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
4590
4591 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
4592 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
4593
4594       </div>
4595       <div class="tags">
4596
4597
4598         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>.
4599
4600
4601       </div>
4602     </div>
4603     <div class="padding"></div>
4604
4605     <div class="entry">
4606       <div class="title">
4607         <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>
4608       </div>
4609       <div class="date">
4610         14th May 2010
4611       </div>
4612       <div class="body">
4613         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
4614 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
4615 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
4616 expected, if I am to believe the
4617 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
4618 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
4619 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
4620 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
4621 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
4622 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
4623 version.</p>
4624
4625 More information about
4626 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
4627 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
4628 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
4629 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
4630
4631 <blockquote><pre>
4632 CONCURRENCY=none
4633 </pre></blockquote>
4634
4635 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
4636 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
4637 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
4638 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
4639
4640       </div>
4641       <div class="tags">
4642
4643
4644         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>.
4645
4646
4647       </div>
4648     </div>
4649     <div class="padding"></div>
4650
4651     <div class="entry">
4652       <div class="title">
4653         <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>
4654       </div>
4655       <div class="date">
4656         14th May 2010
4657       </div>
4658       <div class="body">
4659         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
4660 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
4661 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
4662 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
4663 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
4664 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
4665 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
4666 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
4667
4668 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
4669 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
4670 this on the collector host:</p>
4671
4672 <blockquote><pre>
4673 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
4674 </pre></blockquote>
4675
4676 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
4677 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
4678
4679 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
4680 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
4681 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
4682 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
4683 written yet.</p>
4684
4685       </div>
4686       <div class="tags">
4687
4688
4689         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>.
4690
4691
4692       </div>
4693     </div>
4694     <div class="padding"></div>
4695
4696     <div class="entry">
4697       <div class="title">
4698         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
4699       </div>
4700       <div class="date">
4701         13th May 2010
4702       </div>
4703       <div class="body">
4704         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
4705 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
4706 has been
4707 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
4708
4709 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
4710 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
4711 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
4712 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
4713 based boot system.  Tollef is
4714 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
4715 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
4716 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
4717 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
4718 at the moment do not.</p>
4719
4720 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
4721 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
4722 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
4723 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
4724 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
4725 way forward.</p>
4726
4727 <p>In the mean time, based on the
4728 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
4729 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
4730 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
4731 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
4732 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
4733 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
4734 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
4735 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
4736
4737       </div>
4738       <div class="tags">
4739
4740
4741         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>.
4742
4743
4744       </div>
4745     </div>
4746     <div class="padding"></div>
4747
4748     <div class="entry">
4749       <div class="title">
4750         <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>
4751       </div>
4752       <div class="date">
4753          6th May 2010
4754       </div>
4755       <div class="body">
4756         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
4757 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
4758 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
4759 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
4760 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
4761 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
4762 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
4763
4764 <blockquote><pre>
4765 CONCURRENCY=makefile
4766 </pre></blockquote>
4767
4768 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
4769 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
4770 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
4771 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
4772 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
4773 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
4774 make this happen.</p>
4775
4776 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
4777 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
4778 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
4779 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
4780 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
4781
4782 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
4783 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
4784 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
4785 fix the remaining issues.</p>
4786
4787 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
4788 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
4789 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
4790 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
4791
4792       </div>
4793       <div class="tags">
4794
4795
4796         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>.
4797
4798
4799       </div>
4800     </div>
4801     <div class="padding"></div>
4802
4803     <div class="entry">
4804       <div class="title">
4805         <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>
4806       </div>
4807       <div class="date">
4808         27th July 2009
4809       </div>
4810       <div class="body">
4811         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
4812 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
4813 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
4814 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
4815 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
4816 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
4817 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
4818
4819 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
4820 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
4821 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
4822
4823       </div>
4824       <div class="tags">
4825
4826
4827         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>.
4828
4829
4830       </div>
4831     </div>
4832     <div class="padding"></div>
4833
4834     <div class="entry">
4835       <div class="title">
4836         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
4837       </div>
4838       <div class="date">
4839         22nd July 2009
4840       </div>
4841       <div class="body">
4842         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
4843 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
4844 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
4845 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
4846 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
4847 the package up to date.</p>
4848
4849 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
4850 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
4851 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
4852 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
4853 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
4854 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
4855 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
4856 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
4857 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
4858 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
4859 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
4860 working on the future release.</p>
4861
4862 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
4863 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
4864
4865       </div>
4866       <div class="tags">
4867
4868
4869         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>.
4870
4871
4872       </div>
4873     </div>
4874     <div class="padding"></div>
4875
4876     <div class="entry">
4877       <div class="title">
4878         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
4879       </div>
4880       <div class="date">
4881         24th June 2009
4882       </div>
4883       <div class="body">
4884         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
4885 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
4886 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
4887 funded
4888 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
4889 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
4890 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
4891 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
4892 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
4893 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
4894
4895 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
4896 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
4897 boot:</p>
4898
4899 <ul>
4900
4901 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
4902
4903 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
4904    clock is in UTC.</li>
4905
4906 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
4907    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
4908    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
4909
4910 </ul>
4911
4912 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
4913 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
4914 Villegas</a>.
4915
4916 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
4917 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
4918 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
4919 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
4920 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
4921 using this.</p>
4922
4923 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
4924 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
4925 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
4926 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
4927 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
4928 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
4929 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
4930
4931       </div>
4932       <div class="tags">
4933
4934
4935         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>.
4936
4937
4938       </div>
4939     </div>
4940     <div class="padding"></div>
4941
4942     <div class="entry">
4943       <div class="title">
4944         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
4945       </div>
4946       <div class="date">
4947         17th May 2009
4948       </div>
4949       <div class="body">
4950         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
4951 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
4952 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
4953 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
4954 dager siden kom
4955 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
4956 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
4957 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
4958 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
4959 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
4960
4961 <blockquote>
4962 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
4963 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
4964 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
4965 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
4966 </blockquote>
4967
4968 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
4969 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
4970 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
4971 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
4972 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
4973
4974 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
4975 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
4976 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
4977
4978       </div>
4979       <div class="tags">
4980
4981
4982         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>.
4983
4984
4985       </div>
4986     </div>
4987     <div class="padding"></div>
4988
4989     <div class="entry">
4990       <div class="title">
4991         <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>
4992       </div>
4993       <div class="date">
4994          7th May 2009
4995       </div>
4996       <div class="body">
4997         <p>Kom over
4998 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
4999 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
5000 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
5001 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
5002 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
5003 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
5004 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
5005
5006       </div>
5007       <div class="tags">
5008
5009
5010         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>.
5011
5012
5013       </div>
5014     </div>
5015     <div class="padding"></div>
5016
5017     <div class="entry">
5018       <div class="title">
5019         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
5020       </div>
5021       <div class="date">
5022          2nd May 2009
5023       </div>
5024       <div class="body">
5025         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
5026 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
5027 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
5028 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
5029 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
5030 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
5031 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
5032 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
5033 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
5034 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
5035 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
5036 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
5037 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
5038 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
5039 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
5040 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
5041 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
5042 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
5043 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
5044 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
5045
5046 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
5047 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
5048 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
5049 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
5050 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
5051 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
5052 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
5053 betydelige.</p>
5054
5055       </div>
5056       <div class="tags">
5057
5058
5059         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>.
5060
5061
5062       </div>
5063     </div>
5064     <div class="padding"></div>
5065
5066     <div class="entry">
5067       <div class="title">
5068         <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>
5069       </div>
5070       <div class="date">
5071          2nd May 2009
5072       </div>
5073       <div class="body">
5074         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
5075 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
5076 do not yet know them.</p>
5077
5078 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
5079 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
5080 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
5081 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
5082 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
5083 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
5084 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
5085 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
5086 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
5087 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
5088 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
5089
5090 <p>The second one is
5091 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
5092 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
5093 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
5094 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
5095 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
5096 and the company behind it is running
5097 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
5098 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
5099 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
5100 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
5101 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
5102 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
5103 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
5104 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
5105
5106 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
5107 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
5108 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
5109 surrounded by today.</p>
5110
5111       </div>
5112       <div class="tags">
5113
5114
5115         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>.
5116
5117
5118       </div>
5119     </div>
5120     <div class="padding"></div>
5121
5122     <div class="entry">
5123       <div class="title">
5124         <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>
5125       </div>
5126       <div class="date">
5127         28th April 2009
5128       </div>
5129       <div class="body">
5130         <p>Julien Blache
5131 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
5132 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
5133 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
5134 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
5135 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
5136 properties.</p>
5137
5138       </div>
5139       <div class="tags">
5140
5141
5142         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>.
5143
5144
5145       </div>
5146     </div>
5147     <div class="padding"></div>
5148
5149     <div class="entry">
5150       <div class="title">
5151         <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>
5152       </div>
5153       <div class="date">
5154         30th March 2009
5155       </div>
5156       <div class="body">
5157         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
5158 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
5159 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
5160 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
5161 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
5162 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
5163 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
5164 application.</p>
5165
5166 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
5167 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
5168 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
5169 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
5170 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
5171 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
5172 blocked from doing so.</p>
5173
5174 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
5175 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
5176 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
5177 requirements change.</p>
5178
5179 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
5180 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
5181 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
5182
5183       </div>
5184       <div class="tags">
5185
5186
5187         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
5188
5189
5190       </div>
5191     </div>
5192     <div class="padding"></div>
5193
5194     <div class="entry">
5195       <div class="title">
5196         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
5197       </div>
5198       <div class="date">
5199         29th March 2009
5200       </div>
5201       <div class="body">
5202         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
5203 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
5204 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
5205 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
5206 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
5207 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
5208 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
5209 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
5210 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
5211 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
5212 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
5213 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
5214 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
5215 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
5216 now. :)</p>
5217
5218       </div>
5219       <div class="tags">
5220
5221
5222         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>.
5223
5224
5225       </div>
5226     </div>
5227     <div class="padding"></div>
5228
5229     <div class="entry">
5230       <div class="title">
5231         <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>
5232       </div>
5233       <div class="date">
5234         29th March 2009
5235       </div>
5236       <div class="body">
5237         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
5238 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
5239 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
5240 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
5241 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
5242 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
5243
5244 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
5245 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
5246 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
5247 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
5248 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
5249 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
5250 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
5251 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
5252 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
5253 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
5254 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
5255 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
5256 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
5257
5258 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
5259 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
5260 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
5261 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
5262
5263 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
5264 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
5265
5266 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
5267 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
5268 new IETF work group?</p>
5269
5270       </div>
5271       <div class="tags">
5272
5273
5274         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>.
5275
5276
5277       </div>
5278     </div>
5279     <div class="padding"></div>
5280
5281     <div class="entry">
5282       <div class="title">
5283         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
5284       </div>
5285       <div class="date">
5286         15th February 2009
5287       </div>
5288       <div class="body">
5289         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
5290 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
5291 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
5292 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
5293 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
5294 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
5295 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
5296 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
5297 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
5298 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
5299 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
5300 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
5301
5302       </div>
5303       <div class="tags">
5304
5305
5306         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>.
5307
5308
5309       </div>
5310     </div>
5311     <div class="padding"></div>
5312
5313     <div class="entry">
5314       <div class="title">
5315         <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>
5316       </div>
5317       <div class="date">
5318          7th December 2008
5319       </div>
5320       <div class="body">
5321         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
5322 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
5323 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
5324 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
5325 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
5326 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
5327 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
5328 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
5329
5330 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
5331 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
5332 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
5333 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
5334 of these cards.</p>
5335
5336       </div>
5337       <div class="tags">
5338
5339
5340         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>.
5341
5342
5343       </div>
5344     </div>
5345     <div class="padding"></div>
5346
5347     <div class="entry">
5348       <div class="title">
5349         <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>
5350       </div>
5351       <div class="date">
5352         25th November 2008
5353       </div>
5354       <div class="body">
5355         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
5356 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
5357 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
5358 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
5359 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
5360 notes are available on
5361 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
5362 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
5363 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
5364 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
5365 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
5366 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
5367 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
5368 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
5369 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
5370
5371 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
5372 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
5373
5374       </div>
5375       <div class="tags">
5376
5377
5378         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>.
5379
5380
5381       </div>
5382     </div>
5383     <div class="padding"></div>
5384
5385     <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>
5386     <div id="sidebar">
5387
5388
5389
5390 <h2>Archive</h2>
5391 <ul>
5392
5393 <li>2013
5394 <ul>
5395
5396 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (9)</a></li>
5397
5398 </ul></li>
5399
5400 <li>2012
5401 <ul>
5402
5403 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
5404
5405 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
5406
5407 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
5408
5409 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
5410
5411 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
5412
5413 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
5414
5415 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
5416
5417 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
5418
5419 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
5420
5421 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
5422
5423 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
5424
5425 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
5426
5427 </ul></li>
5428
5429 <li>2011
5430 <ul>
5431
5432 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
5433
5434 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
5435
5436 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
5437
5438 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
5439
5440 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
5441
5442 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
5443
5444 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
5445
5446 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
5447
5448 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
5449
5450 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
5451
5452 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
5453
5454 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
5455
5456 </ul></li>
5457
5458 <li>2010
5459 <ul>
5460
5461 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
5462
5463 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
5464
5465 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
5466
5467 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
5468
5469 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
5470
5471 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
5472
5473 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
5474
5475 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
5476
5477 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
5478
5479 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
5480
5481 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
5482
5483 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
5484
5485 </ul></li>
5486
5487 <li>2009
5488 <ul>
5489
5490 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
5491
5492 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
5493
5494 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
5495
5496 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
5497
5498 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
5499
5500 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
5501
5502 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
5503
5504 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
5505
5506 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
5507
5508 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
5509
5510 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
5511
5512 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
5513
5514 </ul></li>
5515
5516 <li>2008
5517 <ul>
5518
5519 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
5520
5521 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
5522
5523 </ul></li>
5524
5525 </ul>
5526
5527
5528
5529 <h2>Tags</h2>
5530 <ul>
5531
5532  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
5533
5534  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
5535
5536  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
5537
5538  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
5539
5540  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (5)</a></li>
5541
5542  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
5543
5544  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
5545
5546  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (67)</a></li>
5547
5548  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (118)</a></li>
5549
5550  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (9)</a></li>
5551
5552  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (7)</a></li>
5553
5554  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
5555
5556  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (173)</a></li>
5557
5558  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
5559
5560  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
5561
5562  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (10)</a></li>
5563
5564  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (9)</a></li>
5565
5566  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (32)</a></li>
5567
5568  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (17)</a></li>
5569
5570  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
5571
5572  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
5573
5574  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
5575
5576  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
5577
5578  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (219)</a></li>
5579
5580  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (148)</a></li>
5581
5582  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (6)</a></li>
5583
5584  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
5585
5586  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (41)</a></li>
5587
5588  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (61)</a></li>
5589
5590  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
5591
5592  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
5593
5594  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
5595
5596  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (6)</a></li>
5597
5598  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
5599
5600  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
5601
5602  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
5603
5604  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (28)</a></li>
5605
5606  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
5607
5608  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
5609
5610  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (39)</a></li>
5611
5612  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
5613
5614  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (5)</a></li>
5615
5616  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (12)</a></li>
5617
5618  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
5619
5620  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (7)</a></li>
5621
5622  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (35)</a></li>
5623
5624  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
5625
5626  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (26)</a></li>
5627
5628 </ul>
5629
5630
5631     </div>
5632     <p style="text-align: right">
5633  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.4</a>
5634 </p>
5635
5636   </body>
5637 </html>