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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/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         22nd October 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
  32 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
  33 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
  34 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
  35 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
  36 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
  37 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
  38 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
  39 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
  40 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
  41 lists I recently took over:</p>
  42
  43 <p><blockquote><pre>
  44 % time listadmin xiph
  45 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
  46 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
  47
  48 real    0m1.709s
  49 user    0m0.232s
  50 sys     0m0.012s
  51 %
  52 </pre></blockquote></p>
  53
  54 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
  55 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
  56 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
  57 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
  58 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
  59 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
  60 program.</p>
  61
  62 <p>If you install
  63 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
  64 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
  65 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
  66
  67 <p><blockquote><pre>
  68 username username@example.org
  69 spamlevel 23
  70 default discard
  71 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
  72
  73 password secret
  74 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
  75 mailman-list@lists.example.com
  76
  77 password hidden
  78 other-list@otherserver.example.org
  79 </pre></blockquote></p>
  80
  81 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
  82 learn the details.</p>
  83
  84 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
  85 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
  86 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
  87 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
  88
  89 <p><blockquote><pre>
  90 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
  91 </pre></blockquote></p>
  92
  93 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
  94 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
  95 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
  96 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
  97 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
  98 email.</p>
  99
 100 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
 101 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
 102 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
 103 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
 104 software.</p>
 105
 106 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 107 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 108 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 109
 110 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
 111 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
 112 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
 113 sure why.</p>
 114
 115       </div>
 116       <div class="tags">
 117
 118
 119         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 120
 121
 122       </div>
 123     </div>
 124     <div class="padding"></div>
 125
 126     <div class="entry">
 127       <div class="title">
 128         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
 129       </div>
 130       <div class="date">
 131         17th October 2014
 132       </div>
 133       <div class="body">
 134         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
 135 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
 136 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
 137 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
 138 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
 139 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
 140 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
 141
 142 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
 143 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
 144 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
 145 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
 146 of this story.)</p>
 147
 148 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
 149 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
 150 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
 151 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
 152 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
 153 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
 154 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
 155 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
 156 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
 157 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
 158
 159 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
 160 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
 161 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
 162 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
 163
 164 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
 165 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
 166
 167 <p><blockquote><pre>
 168 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
 169 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
 170 </pre></blockquote></p>
 171
 172 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
 173 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
 174 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
 175 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
 176 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
 177 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
 178 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
 179 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
 180
 181 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
 182 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
 183
 184 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
 185 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
 186 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
 187 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
 188 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
 189
 190 <p><blockquote><pre>
 191 Task: isenkram-packages
 192 Section: hardware
 193 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 194  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 195  proposed.
 196 Test-new-install: show show
 197 Relevance: 8
 198 Packages: for-current-hardware
 199
 200 Task: isenkram-firmware
 201 Section: hardware
 202 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 203  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
 204  packages are proposed.
 205 Test-new-install: mark show
 206 Relevance: 8
 207 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
 208 </pre></blockquote></p>
 209
 210 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
 211 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
 212 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
 213 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
 214 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
 215
 216 <p><blockquote><pre>
 217 #!/bin/sh
 218 #
 219 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
 220 export PATH
 221 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 222 </pre></blockquote></p>
 223
 224 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
 225 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
 226
 227 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
 228 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
 229 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
 230 install.</p>
 231
 232 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
 233 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
 234 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
 235
 236       </div>
 237       <div class="tags">
 238
 239
 240         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
 241
 242
 243       </div>
 244     </div>
 245     <div class="padding"></div>
 246
 247     <div class="entry">
 248       <div class="title">
 249         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
 250       </div>
 251       <div class="date">
 252          4th October 2014
 253       </div>
 254       <div class="body">
 255         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
 256 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
 257 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
 258 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
 259
 260 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
 261
 262 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
 263 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
 264 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
 265
 266       </div>
 267       <div class="tags">
 268
 269
 270         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>.
 271
 272
 273       </div>
 274     </div>
 275     <div class="padding"></div>
 276
 277     <div class="entry">
 278       <div class="title">
 279         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
 280       </div>
 281       <div class="date">
 282          4th October 2014
 283       </div>
 284       <div class="body">
 285         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
 286 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
 287 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
 288 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
 289 Dibb.</p>
 290
 291 <p>I just wrapped up
 292 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
 293 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
 294 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
 295 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
 296 0.17.</p>
 297
 298 <ul>
 299
 300  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
 301  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
 302    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
 303  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
 304  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
 305  <li>Fix include orders</li>
 306  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
 307  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
 308  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
 309    the palette size is the same.</li>
 310  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
 311  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
 312  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
 313  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
 314    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
 315
 316 </ul>
 317
 318 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
 319 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
 320 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
 321
 322       </div>
 323       <div class="tags">
 324
 325
 326         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 327
 328
 329       </div>
 330     </div>
 331     <div class="padding"></div>
 332
 333     <div class="entry">
 334       <div class="title">
 335         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
 336       </div>
 337       <div class="date">
 338         26th September 2014
 339       </div>
 340       <div class="body">
 341         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 342 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
 343 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
 344 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
 345 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
 346 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
 347 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
 348 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
 349 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
 350 future.  The
 351 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
 352 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
 353 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
 354 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
 355 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
 356
 357 <p>First, download the test ISO via
 358 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
 359 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
 360 or rsync (use
 361 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
 362 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
 363 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
 364 install with some tweaking.</p>
 365
 366 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
 367 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
 368
 369 <p><blockquote><pre>
 370 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
 371 </pre></blockquote></p>
 372
 373 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
 374 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
 375 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
 376 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
 377
 378 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
 379 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
 380 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
 381 your need.</p>
 382
 383 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
 384 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
 385 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
 386 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
 387 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
 388 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
 389 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
 390 days.</p>
 391
 392 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
 393 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
 394 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
 395 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
 396 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
 397 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
 398 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
 399 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
 400 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
 401
 402 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
 403 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
 404 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
 405
 406       </div>
 407       <div class="tags">
 408
 409
 410         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>.
 411
 412
 413       </div>
 414     </div>
 415     <div class="padding"></div>
 416
 417     <div class="entry">
 418       <div class="title">
 419         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
 420       </div>
 421       <div class="date">
 422         25th September 2014
 423       </div>
 424       <div class="body">
 425         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
 426 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
 427 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
 428 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
 429 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
 430 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
 431 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
 432 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
 433 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
 434 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
 435 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
 436 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
 437 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
 438
 439 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
 440 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
 441 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
 442 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
 443 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
 444 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
 445 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
 446 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
 447 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
 448 list</a>. :)</p>
 449
 450       </div>
 451       <div class="tags">
 452
 453
 454         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
 455
 456
 457       </div>
 458     </div>
 459     <div class="padding"></div>
 460
 461     <div class="entry">
 462       <div class="title">
 463         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
 464       </div>
 465       <div class="date">
 466         16th September 2014
 467       </div>
 468       <div class="body">
 469         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
 470 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
 471 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
 472 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
 473 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
 474 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
 475 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
 476 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
 477 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
 478 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
 479 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
 480 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
 481 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
 482 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
 483
 484 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
 485 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
 486 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
 487 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
 488 depend on the small and clever package
 489 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
 490 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
 491 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
 492 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
 493 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
 494 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
 495 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
 496 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
 497 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
 498 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
 499 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
 500
 501 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
 502 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
 503 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
 504 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
 505 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
 506 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
 507 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
 508 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
 509 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
 510 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
 511 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
 512 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
 513 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
 514 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
 515 dialog.</p>
 516
 517 <p><table>
 518
 519 <tr>
 520 <th>Machine/setup</th>
 521 <th>Original tasksel</th>
 522 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
 523 <th>Reduction</th>
 524 </tr>
 525
 526 <tr>
 527 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
 528 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
 529 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
 530 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
 531 </tr>
 532
 533 <tr>
 534 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
 535 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
 536 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
 537 <td>23 min 40%</td>
 538 </tr>
 539
 540 <tr>
 541 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
 542 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
 543 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
 544 <td>11 min 50%</td>
 545 </tr>
 546
 547 <tr>
 548 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
 549 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
 550 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
 551 <td>2 min 33%</td>
 552 </tr>
 553
 554 <tr>
 555 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
 556 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
 557 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
 558 <td>4 min 21%</td>
 559 </tr>
 560
 561 </table></p>
 562
 563 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
 564 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
 565 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
 566 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
 567 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
 568 installed.</p>
 569
 570 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
 571 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
 572 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
 573 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
 574 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
 575 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
 576 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
 577 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
 578 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
 579 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
 580 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
 581 for the entire installation.</p>
 582
 583 <p>I've implemented this in the
 584 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
 585 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
 586 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
 587 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
 588 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
 589
 590 <p><blockquote><pre>
 591 #!/bin/sh
 592 set -e
 593 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 594 info() {
 595     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
 596 }
 597 error() {
 598     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
 599 }
 600 override_install() {
 601     apt-install eatmydata || true
 602     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
 603         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 604             file=/usr/bin/$bin
 605             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
 606             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
 607                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
 608                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
 609                     > /target$file.edu
 610                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
 611                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 612                     --rename --quiet --add $file
 613                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
 614             else
 615                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
 616             fi
 617         done
 618     else
 619         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
 620     fi
 621 }
 622
 623 override_install
 624 </pre></blockquote></p>
 625
 626 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
 627 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
 628
 629 <p><blockquote><pre>
 630 #! /bin/sh -e
 631 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
 632 error() {
 633     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
 634 }
 635 remove_install_override() {
 636     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
 637         file=/usr/bin/$bin
 638         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
 639             rm /target$file
 640             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
 641                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
 642             rm /target$file.edu
 643         else
 644             error "Missing divert for $file."
 645         fi
 646     done
 647     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
 648 }
 649
 650 remove_install_override
 651 </pre></blockquote></p>
 652
 653 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
 654 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
 655 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
 656
 657 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
 658 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
 659 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
 660 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
 661 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
 662 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
 663 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
 664 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
 665 everyone.</p>
 666
 667 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
 668 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
 669 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
 670 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
 671
 672 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
 673 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
 674 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
 675 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
 676 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
 677
 678       </div>
 679       <div class="tags">
 680
 681
 682         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>.
 683
 684
 685       </div>
 686     </div>
 687     <div class="padding"></div>
 688
 689     <div class="entry">
 690       <div class="title">
 691         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
 692       </div>
 693       <div class="date">
 694         10th September 2014
 695       </div>
 696       <div class="body">
 697         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
 698 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
 699 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
 700 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
 701 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
 702 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
 703 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
 704 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
 705 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
 706 those problems are gone now.</p>
 707
 708 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
 709 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
 710 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
 711 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
 712 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
 713
 714 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
 715 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
 716 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
 717
 718 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
 719 line:</p>
 720
 721 <p><blockquote><pre>
 722 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
 723 </pre></blockquote></p>
 724
 725 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
 726 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
 727 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
 728 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
 729
 730 <p><blockquote><pre>
 731 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
 732 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
 733 %
 734 </pre></blockquote></p>
 735
 736 <p>Now if only
 737 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
 738 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
 739 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
 740 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
 741 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
 742 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
 743 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
 744 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
 745 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
 746
 747       </div>
 748       <div class="tags">
 749
 750
 751         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 752
 753
 754       </div>
 755     </div>
 756     <div class="padding"></div>
 757
 758     <div class="entry">
 759       <div class="title">
 760         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
 761       </div>
 762       <div class="date">
 763         17th June 2014
 764       </div>
 765       <div class="body">
 766         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 767 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
 768 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
 769 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
 770 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
 771
 772 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
 773 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
 774 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
 775 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
 776 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
 777 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
 778 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
 779 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
 780 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
 781 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
 782 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
 783 goals.</p>
 784
 785 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
 786 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
 787 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
 788 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
 789 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
 790 chapters together into one large web page (aka
 791 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
 792 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
 793 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
 794 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
 795 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
 796 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
 797 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
 798 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
 799 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
 800 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
 801 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
 802 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
 803 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
 804 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
 805 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
 806 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
 807 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
 808 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
 809
 810 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
 811 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
 812 track the English original.  For this we use the
 813 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
 814 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
 815 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
 816 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
 817 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
 818 files), which the translations update with the native language
 819 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
 820 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
 821 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
 822 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
 823 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
 824 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
 825 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
 826 of the documentation.</p>
 827
 828 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
 829 recommend using
 830 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
 831 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
 832 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
 833 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
 834 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
 835 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
 836 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
 837 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
 838
 839 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
 840 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
 841 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
 842 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
 843 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
 844 translated images by storing translated versions in
 845 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
 846 package maintainers know more.</p>
 847
 848 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
 849 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
 850 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
 851 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
 852 PDF version</a> or the
 853 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
 854 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
 855 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
 856
 857 <p>To learn more, check out
 858 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
 859 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
 860 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
 861 manual on the wiki</a> and
 862 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
 863 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
 864
 865       </div>
 866       <div class="tags">
 867
 868
 869         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 870
 871
 872       </div>
 873     </div>
 874     <div class="padding"></div>
 875
 876     <div class="entry">
 877       <div class="title">
 878         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
 879       </div>
 880       <div class="date">
 881         23rd April 2014
 882       </div>
 883       <div class="body">
 884         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
 885 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
 886 So I implemented one, using
 887 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
 888 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
 889 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
 890 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
 891 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
 892 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
 893
 894 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
 895 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
 896 packages to install.  The first part is in
 897 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
 898 this:</p>
 899
 900 <p><blockquote><pre>
 901 Task: isenkram
 902 Section: hardware
 903 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 904  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 905  proposed.
 906 Test-new-install: mark show
 907 Relevance: 8
 908 Packages: for-current-hardware
 909 </pre></blockquote></p>
 910
 911 <p>The second part is in
 912 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
 913 this:</p>
 914
 915 <p><blockquote><pre>
 916 #!/bin/sh
 917 #
 918 (
 919     isenkram-lookup
 920     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 921 ) | sort -u
 922 </pre></blockquote></p>
 923
 924 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
 925 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
 926 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
 927 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
 928 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
 929 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
 930
 931 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
 932 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
 933 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
 934 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
 935 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
 936 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
 937 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
 938 the python-apt code (bug
 939 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
 940 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
 941 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
 942 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
 943 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
 944 unstable today.</p>
 945
 946 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
 947 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
 948 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
 949 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
 950 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
 951 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
 952 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
 953 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
 954 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
 955
 956 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
 957 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
 958 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
 959 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
 960 package.  See also
 961 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
 962 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
 963 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
 964 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
 965
 966       </div>
 967       <div class="tags">
 968
 969
 970         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
 971
 972
 973       </div>
 974     </div>
 975     <div class="padding"></div>
 976
 977     <div class="entry">
 978       <div class="title">
 979         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
 980       </div>
 981       <div class="date">
 982         15th April 2014
 983       </div>
 984       <div class="body">
 985         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
 986 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
 987 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
 988 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
 989 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
 990 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
 991
 992 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
 993 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
 994 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
 995 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
 996 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
 997 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
 998 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
 999
1000 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
1001 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
1002 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
1003 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
1004 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
1005 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
1006 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
1007 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
1008 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
1009 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
1010 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
1011 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
1012
1013 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
1014 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
1015 become root:</p>
1016
1017 <p><pre>
1018 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1019   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1020   u-boot-tools
1021 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1022   freedom-maker
1023 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1024 </pre></p>
1025
1026 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1027 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
1028 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
1029 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
1030 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
1031 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
1032 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
1033 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
1034
1035 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1036 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1037 the preseed values:</p>
1038
1039 <p><pre>
1040 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1041 </pre></p>
1042
1043 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
1044 it still work.</p>
1045
1046 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
1047 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
1048 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
1049 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
1050 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
1051 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
1052 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
1053
1054 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1055 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1056 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1057 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1058 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1059 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1060
1061       </div>
1062       <div class="tags">
1063
1064
1065         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1066
1067
1068       </div>
1069     </div>
1070     <div class="padding"></div>
1071
1072     <div class="entry">
1073       <div class="title">
1074         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
1075       </div>
1076       <div class="date">
1077          9th April 2014
1078       </div>
1079       <div class="body">
1080         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
1081 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
1082 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
1083 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
1084 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
1085 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
1086 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
1087 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
1088 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
1089 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
1090 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
1091 have looked at a system called
1092 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
1093 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
1094
1095 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
1096 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
1097 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
1098 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
1099 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
1100 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
1101 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
1102 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
1103 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
1104 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
1105 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
1106 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
1107 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
1108
1109 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
1110 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
1111 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
1112 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
1113 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
1114 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
1115 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
1116 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
1117 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
1118 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
1119 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
1120 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
1121 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
1122 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
1123 account.</p>
1124
1125 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
1126 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
1127 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
1128 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
1129 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
1130 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
1131 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
1132
1133 <p><blockquote><pre>
1134 [s3c]
1135 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1136 backend-login: API-login
1137 backend-password: API-password
1138 fs-passphrase: local-password
1139 </pre></blockquote></p>
1140
1141 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
1142 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
1143 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
1144 details and password to create it:</p>
1145
1146 <p><blockquote><pre>
1147 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
1148 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1149   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1150 Enter backend login:
1151 Enter backend password:
1152 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
1153 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
1154 Enter encryption password:
1155 Confirm encryption password:
1156 Generating random encryption key...
1157 Creating metadata tables...
1158 Dumping metadata...
1159 ..objects..
1160 ..blocks..
1161 ..inodes..
1162 ..inode_blocks..
1163 ..symlink_targets..
1164 ..names..
1165 ..contents..
1166 ..ext_attributes..
1167 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1168 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
1169 # </pre></blockquote></p>
1170
1171 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
1172
1173 <p><blockquote><pre>
1174 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1175   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1176 Using 4 upload threads.
1177 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
1178 Reading metadata...
1179 ..objects..
1180 ..blocks..
1181 ..inodes..
1182 ..inode_blocks..
1183 ..symlink_targets..
1184 ..names..
1185 ..contents..
1186 ..ext_attributes..
1187 Mounting filesystem...
1188 # df -h /s3ql
1189 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
1190 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
1191 #
1192 </pre></blockquote></p>
1193
1194 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
1195 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
1196 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
1197 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
1198 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
1199 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
1200
1201 <p><blockquote><pre>
1202 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
1203 #
1204 </pre></blockquote></p>
1205
1206 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
1207 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
1208 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
1209 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
1210 file system:</p>
1211
1212 <p><blockquote><pre>
1213 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1214 Using cached metadata.
1215 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
1216 Checking DB integrity...
1217 Creating temporary extra indices...
1218 Checking lost+found...
1219 Checking cached objects...
1220 Checking names (refcounts)...
1221 Checking contents (names)...
1222 Checking contents (inodes)...
1223 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
1224 Checking objects (reference counts)...
1225 Checking objects (backend)...
1226 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
1227 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
1228 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
1229 Checking objects (sizes)...
1230 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
1231 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
1232 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
1233 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
1234 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
1235 Checking inodes (sizes)...
1236 Checking extended attributes (names)...
1237 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
1238 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
1239 Checking directory reachability...
1240 Checking unix conventions...
1241 Checking referential integrity...
1242 Dropping temporary indices...
1243 Backing up old metadata...
1244 Dumping metadata...
1245 ..objects..
1246 ..blocks..
1247 ..inodes..
1248 ..inode_blocks..
1249 ..symlink_targets..
1250 ..names..
1251 ..contents..
1252 ..ext_attributes..
1253 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1254 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
1255 #
1256 </pre></blockquote></p>
1257
1258 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
1259 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
1260 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1261 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
1262 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1263 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1264 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
1265 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
1266 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1267 working set.</p>
1268
1269 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
1270 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
1271 busy:</p>
1272
1273 <p><blockquote><pre>
1274 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1275   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1276 Using 8 upload threads.
1277 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
1278 #
1279 </pre></blockquote></p>
1280
1281 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
1282 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
1283 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
1284 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
1285 s3qlctrl:
1286
1287 <p><blockquote><pre>
1288 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
1289 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
1290 #
1291 </pre></blockquote></p>
1292
1293 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
1294 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
1295 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
1296 a report:</p>
1297
1298 <p><blockquote><pre>
1299 # s3qlstat /s3ql
1300 Directory entries:    9141
1301 Inodes:               9143
1302 Data blocks:          8851
1303 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
1304 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
1305 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
1306 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
1307 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
1308 #
1309 </pre></blockquote></p>
1310
1311 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
1312 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
1313 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
1314 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
1315 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
1316 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
1317 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
1318 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
1319 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
1320 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
1321 best.</p>
1322
1323 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
1324 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
1325 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
1326 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
1327 poster is titled
1328 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
1329 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
1330 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
1331 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
1332 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
1333
1334 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
1335 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
1336 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
1337 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
1338 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
1339 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
1340 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
1341 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
1342
1343 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
1344 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
1345 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
1346 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
1347 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
1348 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
1349 only read from it.</p>
1350
1351 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1352 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1353 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1354
1355       </div>
1356       <div class="tags">
1357
1358
1359         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
1360
1361
1362       </div>
1363     </div>
1364     <div class="padding"></div>
1365
1366     <div class="entry">
1367       <div class="title">
1368         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
1369       </div>
1370       <div class="date">
1371         14th March 2014
1372       </div>
1373       <div class="body">
1374         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1375 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
1376 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
1377 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
1378 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
1379 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
1380 release (0.2).</p>
1381
1382 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
1383 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
1384 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
1385 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
1386 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
1387 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
1388 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
1389 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
1390 and build using
1391 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
1392 with a user with sudo access to become root:
1393
1394 <pre>
1395 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1396   freedom-maker
1397 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1398   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1399   u-boot-tools
1400 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1401 </pre>
1402
1403 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1404 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1405 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
1406 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
1407 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
1408 kpartx call.</p>
1409
1410 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1411 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1412 the preseed values:</p>
1413
1414 <pre>
1415 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1416 </pre>
1417
1418 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
1419 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
1420 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
1421 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
1422 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
1423 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
1424
1425 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1426 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1427 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1428 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1429 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1430 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1431
1432       </div>
1433       <div class="tags">
1434
1435
1436         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1437
1438
1439       </div>
1440     </div>
1441     <div class="padding"></div>
1442
1443     <div class="entry">
1444       <div class="title">
1445         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
1446       </div>
1447       <div class="date">
1448         22nd February 2014
1449       </div>
1450       <div class="body">
1451         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
1452 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
1453 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
1454 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
1455 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
1456 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
1457 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
1458 proper home since then.</p>
1459
1460 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
1461 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
1462 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
1463 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
1464 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
1465
1466 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
1467 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
1468 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
1469 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
1470 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
1471 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
1472 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
1473 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
1474 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
1475
1476       </div>
1477       <div class="tags">
1478
1479
1480         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>.
1481
1482
1483       </div>
1484     </div>
1485     <div class="padding"></div>
1486
1487     <div class="entry">
1488       <div class="title">
1489         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
1490       </div>
1491       <div class="date">
1492          3rd February 2014
1493       </div>
1494       <div class="body">
1495         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
1496 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
1497 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
1498 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
1499 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
1500 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
1501 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
1502 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
1503 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
1504
1505 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
1506 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
1507 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
1508 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
1509 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
1510 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
1511
1512 <p><blockquote><pre>
1513 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
1514 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
1515 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
1516 dhclient /dev/eth0
1517 </pre></blockquote></p>
1518
1519 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
1520 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
1521 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
1522
1523 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
1524 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
1525 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
1526 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
1527 side.</p>
1528
1529 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
1530 stuff:</p>
1531
1532 <p><blockquote><pre>
1533 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1534 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
1535 EOF
1536 apt-get update
1537 apt-get dist-upgrade
1538 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
1539     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
1540 update-alternatives --config runsystem
1541 </pre></blockquote></p>
1542
1543 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
1544 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
1545 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
1546 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
1547 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
1548 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
1549 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
1550 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
1551 ssh instead.
1552
1553 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
1554 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
1555 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
1556 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
1557 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
1558 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
1559
1560 <p><blockquote><pre>
1561 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
1562 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
1563 EOF
1564 </pre></blockquote></p>
1565
1566 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
1567 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
1568 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
1569 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
1570
1571 <p><blockquote><pre>
1572 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
1573 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
1574 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
1575 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
1576 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
1577 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
1578 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
1579 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
1580 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
1581 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
1582 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
1583 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
1584 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
1585 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
1586 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
1587 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
1588 #
1589 </pre></blockquote></p>
1590
1591 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
1592 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
1593 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
1594 command line stuff.<p>
1595
1596       </div>
1597       <div class="tags">
1598
1599
1600         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>.
1601
1602
1603       </div>
1604     </div>
1605     <div class="padding"></div>
1606
1607     <div class="entry">
1608       <div class="title">
1609         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
1610       </div>
1611       <div class="date">
1612         14th January 2014
1613       </div>
1614       <div class="body">
1615         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
1616 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
1617 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
1618 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
1619 the source.  The company behind it provide
1620 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
1621 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
1622 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
1623 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
1624 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
1625 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
1626 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
1627 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
1628 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
1629 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
1630 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
1631 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
1632 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
1633 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
1634 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
1635 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
1636 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
1637 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
1638 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
1639
1640 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
1641
1642 <ul>
1643
1644   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
1645   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
1646   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
1647
1648 </ul>
1649
1650 <p>You can
1651 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1652 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1653 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1654 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1655 include a test suite check.</p>
1656
1657       </div>
1658       <div class="tags">
1659
1660
1661         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1662
1663
1664       </div>
1665     </div>
1666     <div class="padding"></div>
1667
1668     <div class="entry">
1669       <div class="title">
1670         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
1671       </div>
1672       <div class="date">
1673         24th November 2013
1674       </div>
1675       <div class="body">
1676         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
1677 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
1678 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
1679 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
1680 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
1681 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
1682 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
1683 is working on.  I checked the
1684 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
1685 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
1686 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
1687 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
1688 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
1689 These are the release notes:</p>
1690
1691 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
1692
1693 <ul>
1694
1695   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
1696    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
1697    up.</li>
1698
1699   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
1700
1701   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
1702    Matthias Klose.</li>
1703
1704   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
1705    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
1706
1707   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
1708    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
1709    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
1710
1711 </ul>
1712
1713 <p>You can
1714 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
1715 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
1716 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
1717 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1718 include a testsuite check.</p>
1719
1720       </div>
1721       <div class="tags">
1722
1723
1724         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1725
1726
1727       </div>
1728     </div>
1729     <div class="padding"></div>
1730
1731     <div class="entry">
1732       <div class="title">
1733         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
1734       </div>
1735       <div class="date">
1736          2nd November 2013
1737       </div>
1738       <div class="body">
1739         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
1740 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
1741 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
1742 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
1743 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
1744
1745 <p><pre>
1746 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
1747 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
1748 # Provides:          rsyslog
1749 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
1750 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
1751 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
1752 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
1753 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
1754 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
1755 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
1756 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
1757 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
1758 ### END INIT INFO
1759 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
1760 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
1761 </pre></p>
1762
1763 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
1764 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
1765 info/comments.</p>
1766
1767 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
1768 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
1769
1770 <p><pre>
1771 #!/bin/sh
1772
1773 # Define LSB log_* functions.
1774 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
1775 # and status_of_proc is working.
1776 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
1777
1778 #
1779 # Function that starts the daemon/service
1780
1781 #
1782 do_start()
1783 {
1784         # Return
1785         #   0 if daemon has been started
1786         #   1 if daemon was already running
1787         #   2 if daemon could not be started
1788         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
1789                 || return 1
1790         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
1791                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
1792                 || return 2
1793         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
1794         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
1795         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
1796 }
1797
1798 #
1799 # Function that stops the daemon/service
1800 #
1801 do_stop()
1802 {
1803         # Return
1804         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
1805         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
1806         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
1807         #   other if a failure occurred
1808         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1809         RETVAL="$?"
1810         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
1811         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
1812         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
1813         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
1814         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
1815         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
1816         # sleep for some time.
1817         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
1818         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
1819         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
1820         rm -f $PIDFILE
1821         return "$RETVAL"
1822 }
1823
1824 #
1825 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
1826 #
1827 do_reload() {
1828         #
1829         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
1830         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
1831         # then implement that here.
1832         #
1833         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1834         return 0
1835 }
1836
1837 SCRIPTNAME=$1
1838 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
1839 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
1840 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
1841     script="$1"
1842     shift
1843     . $script
1844 else
1845     exit 0
1846 fi
1847
1848 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
1849 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
1850
1851 # Exit if the package is not installed
1852 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
1853
1854 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
1855 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
1856
1857 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
1858 . /lib/init/vars.sh
1859
1860 case "$1" in
1861   start)
1862         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
1863         do_start
1864         case "$?" in
1865                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1866                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1867         esac
1868         ;;
1869   stop)
1870         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
1871         do_stop
1872         case "$?" in
1873                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1874                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1875         esac
1876         ;;
1877   status)
1878         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
1879         ;;
1880   #reload|force-reload)
1881         #
1882         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
1883         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
1884         #
1885         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
1886         #do_reload
1887         #log_end_msg $?
1888         #;;
1889   restart|force-reload)
1890         #
1891         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
1892         # 'force-reload' alias
1893         #
1894         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
1895         do_stop
1896         case "$?" in
1897           0|1)
1898                 do_start
1899                 case "$?" in
1900                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
1901                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
1902                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
1903                 esac
1904                 ;;
1905           *)
1906                 # Failed to stop
1907                 log_end_msg 1
1908                 ;;
1909         esac
1910         ;;
1911   *)
1912         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
1913         exit 3
1914         ;;
1915 esac
1916
1917 :
1918 </pre></p>
1919
1920 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
1921 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
1922 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
1923 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
1924
1925 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
1926 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
1927 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
1928 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
1929 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
1930
1931       </div>
1932       <div class="tags">
1933
1934
1935         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>.
1936
1937
1938       </div>
1939     </div>
1940     <div class="padding"></div>
1941
1942     <div class="entry">
1943       <div class="title">
1944         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
1945       </div>
1946       <div class="date">
1947          1st November 2013
1948       </div>
1949       <div class="body">
1950         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
1951 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
1952 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
1953 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
1954 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
1955 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
1956 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
1957 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
1958 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
1959 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
1960 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
1961 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
1962
1963 <p>The source is now available from
1964 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
1965
1966       </div>
1967       <div class="tags">
1968
1969
1970         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>.
1971
1972
1973       </div>
1974     </div>
1975     <div class="padding"></div>
1976
1977     <div class="entry">
1978       <div class="title">
1979         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
1980       </div>
1981       <div class="date">
1982         27th October 2013
1983       </div>
1984       <div class="body">
1985         <p>The
1986 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
1987 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
1988 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
1989 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
1990 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
1991 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
1992 of a plan to simplify the build system for
1993 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
1994 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
1995 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
1996 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
1997 Raspberry Pi.</p>
1998
1999 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
2000 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
2001 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
2002 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
2003 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
2004 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
2005 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
2006 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
2007 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
2008 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
2009 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
2010 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
2011 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
2012 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
2013 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
2014 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
2015 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
2016 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
2017 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
2018 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
2019 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
2020 available from
2021 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
2022 upstream project page</a>.</p>
2023
2024 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
2025 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
2026 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
2027 list:</p>
2028
2029 <p><pre>
2030 #!/bin/sh
2031 set -e # Exit on first error
2032 rootdir="$1"
2033 cd "$rootdir"
2034 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
2035 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
2036 EOF
2037 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
2038 # install a kernel somewhere too.
2039 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
2040     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2041 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2042 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
2043 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
2044 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
2045 </pre></p>
2046
2047 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
2048 to build the image:</p>
2049
2050 <pre>
2051 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
2052     --variant minbase \
2053     --arch armel \
2054     --distribution jessie \
2055     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
2056     --image test.img \
2057     --size 600M \
2058     --bootsize 64M \
2059     --boottype vfat \
2060     --log-level debug \
2061     --verbose \
2062     --no-kernel \
2063     --no-extlinux \
2064     --root-password raspberry \
2065     --hostname raspberrypi \
2066     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
2067     --customize `pwd`/customize \
2068     --package netbase \
2069     --package git-core \
2070     --package binutils \
2071     --package ca-certificates \
2072     --package wget \
2073     --package kmod
2074 </pre></p>
2075
2076 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
2077 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
2078 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
2079 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
2080 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
2081 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
2082 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
2083
2084 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
2085 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
2086 build dependency list.</p>
2087
2088 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
2089 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
2090 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
2091 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
2092
2093       </div>
2094       <div class="tags">
2095
2096
2097         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
2098
2099
2100       </div>
2101     </div>
2102     <div class="padding"></div>
2103
2104     <div class="entry">
2105       <div class="title">
2106         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
2107       </div>
2108       <div class="date">
2109         15th October 2013
2110       </div>
2111       <div class="body">
2112         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
2113 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
2114 these. :)</p>
2115
2116 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
2117 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
2118 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
2119 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
2120 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
2121 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
2122 hope you will to. :)</p>
2123
2124 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
2125 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
2126 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
2127 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
2128 donated.  Are you next?</p>
2129
2130 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
2131 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
2132 statement under the heading
2133 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
2134 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
2135 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
2136 too.</p>
2137
2138       </div>
2139       <div class="tags">
2140
2141
2142         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2143
2144
2145       </div>
2146     </div>
2147     <div class="padding"></div>
2148
2149     <div class="entry">
2150       <div class="title">
2151         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
2152       </div>
2153       <div class="date">
2154         27th September 2013
2155       </div>
2156       <div class="body">
2157         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
2158 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
2159 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
2160 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
2161
2162 <ul>
2163
2164 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
2165 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
2166
2167 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
2168 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2169
2170 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
2171 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
2172 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
2173 (Youtube)</li>
2174
2175 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
2176 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
2177
2178 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
2179 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2180
2181 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
2182 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
2183 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
2184
2185 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
2186 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
2187 (Youtube)</li>
2188
2189 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
2190 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
2191
2192 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
2193 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
2194
2195 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
2196 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2197 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
2198
2199 </ul>
2200
2201 <p>A larger list is available from
2202 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
2203 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
2204
2205 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
2206 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
2207 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
2208 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
2209 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
2210 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
2211 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
2212 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
2213 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
2214 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2215 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2216
2217       </div>
2218       <div class="tags">
2219
2220
2221         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2222
2223
2224       </div>
2225     </div>
2226     <div class="padding"></div>
2227
2228     <div class="entry">
2229       <div class="title">
2230         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
2231       </div>
2232       <div class="date">
2233         10th September 2013
2234       </div>
2235       <div class="body">
2236         <p>I was introduced to the
2237 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
2238 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2239 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2240 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
2241 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2242 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
2243 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2244 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
2245
2246 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2247 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2248 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
2249 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2250 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
2251
2252 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
2253 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2254 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2255 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2256 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
2257 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
2258 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
2259 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2260 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2261 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2262 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2263 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2264 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2265 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2266 missing in Debian).</p>
2267
2268 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2269 scripts
2270 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
2271 and a administrative web interface
2272 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
2273 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2274 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
2275 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2276 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
2277 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2278 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
2279 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2280 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
2281 this is really working yet, see
2282 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
2283 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
2284 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2285 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2286 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2287 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2288 with lots of half baked features.</p>
2289
2290 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2291 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2292 at.</p>
2293
2294 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
2295
2296 <ol>
2297
2298 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
2299 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
2300 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2301 to the Debian installer:<p>
2302 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
2303
2304 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2305 install on.</li>
2306
2307 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2308 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
2309
2310 </ol>
2311
2312 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
2313
2314 <ol>
2315
2316 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
2317 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
2318 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
2319 <pre>
2320 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
2321 </pre></li>
2322 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
2323 <pre>
2324 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2325    apt-key add -
2326 apt-get update
2327 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2328 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2329 </pre></li>
2330 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
2331
2332 </ol>
2333
2334 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2335 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2336 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2337 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
2338 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
2339
2340 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2341 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2342 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2343 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
2344
2345 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2346 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
2347 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
2348 irc.debian.org and the
2349 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
2350 mailing list</a>.</p>
2351
2352 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2353 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
2354 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2355 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
2356 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
2357 default password is 'secret'.</p>
2358
2359       </div>
2360       <div class="tags">
2361
2362
2363         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2364
2365
2366       </div>
2367     </div>
2368     <div class="padding"></div>
2369
2370     <div class="entry">
2371       <div class="title">
2372         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
2373       </div>
2374       <div class="date">
2375         18th August 2013
2376       </div>
2377       <div class="body">
2378         <p>Earlier, I reported about
2379 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
2380 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
2381 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
2382 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2383 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2384 currently on the disk.</p>
2385
2386 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2387 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
2388 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2389 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2390 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2391 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
2392 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2393 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
2394 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2395 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
2396 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
2397 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2398 the broken disks.</p>
2399
2400       </div>
2401       <div class="tags">
2402
2403
2404         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>.
2405
2406
2407       </div>
2408     </div>
2409     <div class="padding"></div>
2410
2411     <div class="entry">
2412       <div class="title">
2413         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
2414       </div>
2415       <div class="date">
2416         17th July 2013
2417       </div>
2418       <div class="body">
2419         <p>Today I switched to
2420 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
2421 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
2422 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2423 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
2424 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
2425 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2426 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2427 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2428 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
2429 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2430 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2431 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2432 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2433 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2434 station from now on.</p>
2435
2436 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2437 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2438 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
2439 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2440 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2441 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
2442 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
2443 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
2444 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2445 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2446 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2447 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
2448
2449 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2450 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
2451 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2452 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2453 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
2454 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
2455 parameters are tuned:</p>
2456
2457 <ul>
2458
2459 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2460     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
2461
2462 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2463     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2464     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
2465
2466 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2467     systems.</li>
2468
2469 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
2470     /etc/fstab.</li>
2471
2472 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
2473
2474 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2475     cron.daily).</li>
2476
2477 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2478     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
2479
2480 </ul>
2481
2482 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2483 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2484 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2485 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2486 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2487 from getting the data on the disk (see
2488 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
2489 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2490 right thing to do.</p>
2491
2492 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2493 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2494 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
2495
2496 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
2497 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2498 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2499 instead of during my work.</p>
2500
2501 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2502 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
2503
2504 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
2505 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2506 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
2507
2508 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2509 there.</p>
2510
2511 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2512 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2513 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2514 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2515 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2516 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2517 back.</p>
2518
2519       </div>
2520       <div class="tags">
2521
2522
2523         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>.
2524
2525
2526       </div>
2527     </div>
2528     <div class="padding"></div>
2529
2530     <div class="entry">
2531       <div class="title">
2532         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
2533       </div>
2534       <div class="date">
2535         10th July 2013
2536       </div>
2537       <div class="body">
2538         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
2539 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
2540 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
2541 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2542 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
2543 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
2544 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
2545 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
2546
2547 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2548 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
2549 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
2550 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2551 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2552 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
2553 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
2554 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
2555 lock up when I download a new
2556 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
2557 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2558 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
2559
2560 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2561 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
2562 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2563 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
2564 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2565 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2566
2567 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2568 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
2569 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2570 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
2571 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2572 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2573
2574 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
2575 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
2576 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
2577 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
2578 exist).</p>
2579
2580       </div>
2581       <div class="tags">
2582
2583
2584         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>.
2585
2586
2587       </div>
2588     </div>
2589     <div class="padding"></div>
2590
2591     <div class="entry">
2592       <div class="title">
2593         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
2594       </div>
2595       <div class="date">
2596          9th July 2013
2597       </div>
2598       <div class="body">
2599         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
2600 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
2601 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
2602 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
2603 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2604 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
2605 Bitraf</a>.</p>
2606
2607 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
2608 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
2609 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
2610 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
2611 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
2612
2613       </div>
2614       <div class="tags">
2615
2616
2617         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>.
2618
2619
2620       </div>
2621     </div>
2622     <div class="padding"></div>
2623
2624     <div class="entry">
2625       <div class="title">
2626         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
2627       </div>
2628       <div class="date">
2629          5th July 2013
2630       </div>
2631       <div class="body">
2632         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
2633 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
2634 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
2635 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
2636 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
2637 ended up picking a
2638 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
2639 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
2640 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
2641 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
2642 on that below.</p>
2643
2644 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2645 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2646 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2647 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2648 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2649 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
2650 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
2651 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
2652 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
2653
2654 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
2655 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
2656 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
2657 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
2658 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
2659 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
2660 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
2661
2662 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
2663 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
2664
2665 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
2666 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
2667 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
2668 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
2669 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
2670 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
2671 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
2672 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
2673 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
2674 kernel developers as
2675 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
2676 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
2677 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
2678 Lenovo forums, both for
2679 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
2680 2012-11-10</a> and for
2681 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
2682 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
2683 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
2684 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
2685 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
2686 There is even a
2687 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
2688 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
2689 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
2690
2691 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
2692 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
2693 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
2694 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
2695 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
2696 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
2697 fixed. :)</p>
2698
2699       </div>
2700       <div class="tags">
2701
2702
2703         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>.
2704
2705
2706       </div>
2707     </div>
2708     <div class="padding"></div>
2709
2710     <div class="entry">
2711       <div class="title">
2712         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
2713       </div>
2714       <div class="date">
2715          4th July 2013
2716       </div>
2717       <div class="body">
2718         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
2719 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
2720 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
2721 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
2722 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
2723 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
2724 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
2725 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
2726 with an expencive door stop.</p>
2727
2728 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2729 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2730 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2731 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2732 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2733 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
2734 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
2735
2736 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
2737 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
2738 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
2739 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
2740 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
2741 new laptop now. :)</p>
2742
2743 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
2744
2745       </div>
2746       <div class="tags">
2747
2748
2749         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>.
2750
2751
2752       </div>
2753     </div>
2754     <div class="padding"></div>
2755
2756     <div class="entry">
2757       <div class="title">
2758         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
2759       </div>
2760       <div class="date">
2761         25th June 2013
2762       </div>
2763       <div class="body">
2764         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
2765 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
2766 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
2767 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
2768 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
2769 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
2770 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
2771 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
2772 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
2773 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
2774 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
2775
2776 <p><pre>
2777 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2778 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
2779 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
2780 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
2781 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
2782 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
2783 firmware-ipw2x00
2784 firmware-ipw2x00
2785 Preconfiguring packages ...
2786 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
2787 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
2788 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
2789 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
2790 #
2791 </pre></p>
2792
2793 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
2794 printed instead:</p>
2795
2796 <p><pre>
2797 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2798 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
2799 #
2800 </pre></p>
2801
2802 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
2803 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
2804
2805 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
2806 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
2807 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
2808 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
2809 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
2810 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
2811 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
2812 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
2813 machine.</p>
2814
2815 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
2816 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
2817 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
2818 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
2819 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
2820 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
2821
2822       </div>
2823       <div class="tags">
2824
2825
2826         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2827
2828
2829       </div>
2830     </div>
2831     <div class="padding"></div>
2832
2833     <div class="entry">
2834       <div class="title">
2835         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
2836       </div>
2837       <div class="date">
2838         11th June 2013
2839       </div>
2840       <div class="body">
2841         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
2842 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
2843 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
2844 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
2845 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
2846 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
2847 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
2848 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
2849 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
2850 i915 driver used by the
2851 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
2852 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
2853
2854 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
2855 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
2856 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
2857 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
2858 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
2859
2860 <pre>
2861 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
2862 update-initramfs -u -k all
2863 </pre>
2864
2865 <p>Since March 2012 there is
2866 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
2867 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
2868 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
2869 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
2870 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
2871 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
2872 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
2873 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
2874 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
2875 number.</p>
2876
2877 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
2878 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
2879
2880 <p><pre>
2881 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
2882     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
2883     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
2884  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
2885  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
2886     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
2887  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
2888     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
2889  Latency: 0
2890  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
2891  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
2892  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
2893  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
2894  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
2895  Capabilities: <access denied>
2896  Kernel driver in use: i915
2897 </pre></p>
2898
2899 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
2900
2901 <p><pre>
2902 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
2903        ...
2904         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
2905         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
2906        ...
2907 }
2908 </pre></p>
2909
2910 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
2911 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
2912 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
2913 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
2914 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
2915 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
2916 yet shown up in
2917 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
2918 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
2919 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
2920 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
2921 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
2922 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
2923
2924 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
2925 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
2926 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
2927 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
2928 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
2929 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
2930 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
2931 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
2932 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
2933 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
2934 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
2935 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
2936
2937 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
2938 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
2939 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
2940 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
2941 backlight.</p>
2942
2943       </div>
2944       <div class="tags">
2945
2946
2947         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>.
2948
2949
2950       </div>
2951     </div>
2952     <div class="padding"></div>
2953
2954     <div class="entry">
2955       <div class="title">
2956         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
2957       </div>
2958       <div class="date">
2959         27th May 2013
2960       </div>
2961       <div class="body">
2962         <p>Two days ago, I asked
2963 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
2964 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
2965 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
2966 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
2967 and Windows 8.</p>
2968
2969 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
2970 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
2971 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
2972 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
2973 enough to tell.</p>
2974
2975 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
2976 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
2977 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
2978 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
2979 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
2980 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
2981 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
2982 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
2983 to follow.</p>
2984
2985 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
2986 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
2987 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
2988 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
2989 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
2990 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
2991 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
2992 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
2993
2994 <p>I've updated the
2995 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
2996 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
2997 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
2998 machine.</p>
2999
3000 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
3001 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
3002
3003       </div>
3004       <div class="tags">
3005
3006
3007         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>.
3008
3009
3010       </div>
3011     </div>
3012     <div class="padding"></div>
3013
3014     <div class="entry">
3015       <div class="title">
3016         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
3017       </div>
3018       <div class="date">
3019         25th May 2013
3020       </div>
3021       <div class="body">
3022         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
3023 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
3024 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
3025 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
3026 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
3027 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
3028
3029 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
3030 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
3031 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
3032 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
3033 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
3034 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
3035 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
3036 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
3037 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
3038 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
3039
3040 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
3041 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3042 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
3043 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
3044 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
3045 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
3046
3047 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
3048 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
3049 on new Laptops?</p>
3050
3051       </div>
3052       <div class="tags">
3053
3054
3055         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>.
3056
3057
3058       </div>
3059     </div>
3060     <div class="padding"></div>
3061
3062     <div class="entry">
3063       <div class="title">
3064         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
3065       </div>
3066       <div class="date">
3067         17th May 2013
3068       </div>
3069       <div class="body">
3070         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
3071 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
3072 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
3073 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
3074 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
3075 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
3076 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
3077 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
3078 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
3079 donate some money</a>.
3080
3081 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
3082 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
3083 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
3084 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
3085 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
3086
3087 <p>The script,
3088 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
3089 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
3090 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
3091 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
3092
3093 <ol>
3094
3095 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
3096 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
3097 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
3098     our configuration.</li>
3099 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
3100     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
3101     according to the profile specified in the config above,
3102     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
3103 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
3104     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
3105 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
3106
3107 </ol>
3108
3109 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
3110 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
3111 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
3112 the needed packages.</p>
3113
3114 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
3115 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
3116 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
3117 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
3118 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
3119 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
3120
3121 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
3122 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
3123 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
3124
3125 <p><pre>
3126 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
3127 DESKTOP="lxde"
3128 </pre></p>
3129
3130 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
3131 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
3132 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
3133 boot.</p>
3134
3135       </div>
3136       <div class="tags">
3137
3138
3139         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3140
3141
3142       </div>
3143     </div>
3144     <div class="padding"></div>
3145
3146     <div class="entry">
3147       <div class="title">
3148         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
3149       </div>
3150       <div class="date">
3151         11th May 2013
3152       </div>
3153       <div class="body">
3154         <P>In January,
3155 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
3156 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
3157 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
3158 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
3159 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
3160 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
3161 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
3162 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
3163 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
3164 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
3165 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
3166 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
3167
3168 <p><table>
3169 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
3170 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
3171 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
3172 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
3173 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
3174 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
3175 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
3176 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
3177 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
3178 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
3179 </table></p>
3180
3181 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
3182 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
3183 available in experimental.</p>
3184
3185 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
3186 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
3187 for LEGO designers.</p>
3188
3189       </div>
3190       <div class="tags">
3191
3192
3193         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>.
3194
3195
3196       </div>
3197     </div>
3198     <div class="padding"></div>
3199
3200     <div class="entry">
3201       <div class="title">
3202         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
3203       </div>
3204       <div class="date">
3205          5th May 2013
3206       </div>
3207       <div class="body">
3208         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
3209 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
3210 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
3211 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
3212 soon.</p>
3213
3214 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
3215 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
3216 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
3217 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
3218 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
3219 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
3220 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
3221 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
3222 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
3223 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
3224 Edu.</a>
3225
3226 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
3227 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
3228 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
3229 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
3230 follow.<p>
3231
3232       </div>
3233       <div class="tags">
3234
3235
3236         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>.
3237
3238
3239       </div>
3240     </div>
3241     <div class="padding"></div>
3242
3243     <div class="entry">
3244       <div class="title">
3245         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
3246       </div>
3247       <div class="date">
3248          3rd April 2013
3249       </div>
3250       <div class="body">
3251         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
3252 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
3253 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
3254 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
3255
3256 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
3257 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
3258 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
3259 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
3260 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
3261 BTS. :)</p>
3262
3263       </div>
3264       <div class="tags">
3265
3266
3267         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3268
3269
3270       </div>
3271     </div>
3272     <div class="padding"></div>
3273
3274     <div class="entry">
3275       <div class="title">
3276         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
3277       </div>
3278       <div class="date">
3279          2nd February 2013
3280       </div>
3281       <div class="body">
3282         <p>My
3283 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
3284 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
3285 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
3286 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
3287 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
3288 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
3289 version too.</p>
3290
3291 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
3292 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
3293 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
3294 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
3295 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
3296 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
3297 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
3298 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
3299
3300 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
3301 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
3302 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
3303 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
3304 it. :)</p>
3305
3306 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3307 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3308 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3309
3310       </div>
3311       <div class="tags">
3312
3313
3314         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>.
3315
3316
3317       </div>
3318     </div>
3319     <div class="padding"></div>
3320
3321     <div class="entry">
3322       <div class="title">
3323         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
3324       </div>
3325       <div class="date">
3326         22nd January 2013
3327       </div>
3328       <div class="body">
3329         <p>Yesterday, I
3330 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
3331 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
3332 pluggable hardware devices, which I
3333 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
3334 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
3335 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
3336 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
3337 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
3338 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
3339 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
3340 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
3341 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
3342 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
3343
3344 <pre>
3345 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
3346 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
3347 </pre>
3348
3349 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
3350 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
3351 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
3352 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
3353
3354 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
3355 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
3356 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
3357 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
3358 word.</p>
3359
3360 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
3361 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
3362 process.</p>
3363
3364 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
3365 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
3366
3367       </div>
3368       <div class="tags">
3369
3370
3371         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3372
3373
3374       </div>
3375     </div>
3376     <div class="padding"></div>
3377
3378     <div class="entry">
3379       <div class="title">
3380         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
3381       </div>
3382       <div class="date">
3383         21st January 2013
3384       </div>
3385       <div class="body">
3386         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
3387 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
3388 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
3389 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
3390 it, fetch the
3391 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
3392 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
3393 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
3394 autostart script.</p>
3395
3396 <p>The design is simple:</p>
3397
3398 <ul>
3399
3400 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
3401 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
3402
3403 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3404 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3405 initially did.</li>
3406
3407 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3408 the APT database, a database
3409 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
3410 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
3411
3412 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3413 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3414 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3415 package or packages.</li>
3416
3417 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
3418 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
3419
3420 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3421 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
3422
3423 </ul>
3424
3425 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
3426 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
3427 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3428 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
3429
3430 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
3431 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
3432 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
3433 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
3434 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
3435
3436 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3437 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
3438 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3439 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3440 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3441 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3442 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3443 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
3444
3445 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
3446 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3447 '<tt>svn checkout
3448 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3449 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
3450 devscripts package.</p>
3451
3452 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
3453 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3454 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
3455 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
3456 instructions</a> for details.</p>
3457
3458       </div>
3459       <div class="tags">
3460
3461
3462         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3463
3464
3465       </div>
3466     </div>
3467     <div class="padding"></div>
3468
3469     <div class="entry">
3470       <div class="title">
3471         <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>
3472       </div>
3473       <div class="date">
3474         19th January 2013
3475       </div>
3476       <div class="body">
3477         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
3478 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
3479 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
3480 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
3481 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
3482 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
3483 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
3484 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
3485 not a durable solution.
3486
3487 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
3488 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
3489
3490 <ul>
3491
3492 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
3493   than A4).</li>
3494 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
3495 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
3496 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
3497 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
3498 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
3499 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
3500 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
3501 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
3502 size).</li>
3503 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
3504   X.org packages.</li>
3505 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
3506   the time).
3507
3508 </ul>
3509
3510 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
3511 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
3512 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
3513 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
3514 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
3515 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
3516 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
3517 still be useful.</p>
3518
3519 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
3520 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
3521 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
3522 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
3523 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
3524 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
3525
3526       </div>
3527       <div class="tags">
3528
3529
3530         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>.
3531
3532
3533       </div>
3534     </div>
3535     <div class="padding"></div>
3536
3537     <div class="entry">
3538       <div class="title">
3539         <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>
3540       </div>
3541       <div class="date">
3542         18th January 2013
3543       </div>
3544       <div class="body">
3545         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
3546 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
3547 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
3548 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
3549 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
3550 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
3551 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
3552
3553 <pre>
3554 #!/usr/bin/python
3555 import sys
3556 import apt
3557 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3558     cache = apt.Cache()
3559     cache.open(None)
3560     thepkgs = []
3561     for pkg in cache:
3562         version = pkg.candidate
3563         if version is None:
3564             version = pkg.installed
3565         if version is None:
3566             continue
3567         record = version.record
3568         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
3569             continue
3570         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
3571         for t in mime_types:
3572             t = t.rstrip().strip()
3573             if t == mimetype:
3574                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
3575     return thepkgs
3576 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
3577 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
3578     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
3579 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
3580 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3581     print "  %s" %pkg
3582 </pre>
3583
3584 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
3585
3586 <pre>
3587 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
3588 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
3589   gecko-mediaplayer
3590 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
3591 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
3592   browser-plugin-gnash
3593 %
3594 </pre>
3595
3596 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
3597 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
3598 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
3599 anyone working on adding it?</p>
3600
3601 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
3602 request for icweasel support for this feature is
3603 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
3604 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
3605 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
3606 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
3607
3608       </div>
3609       <div class="tags">
3610
3611
3612         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>.
3613
3614
3615       </div>
3616     </div>
3617     <div class="padding"></div>
3618
3619     <div class="entry">
3620       <div class="title">
3621         <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>
3622       </div>
3623       <div class="date">
3624         16th January 2013
3625       </div>
3626       <div class="body">
3627         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
3628 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
3629 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
3630 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
3631 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
3632 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
3633 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
3634 downloaded by the browser.</p>
3635
3636 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
3637 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
3638 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
3639 can be found on the
3640 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
3641 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
3642 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
3643 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
3644 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
3645
3646 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
3647
3648 <pre>
3649   count MIME type
3650   ----- -----------------------
3651      32 text/plain
3652      30 audio/mpeg
3653      29 image/png
3654      28 image/jpeg
3655      27 application/ogg
3656      26 audio/x-mp3
3657      25 image/tiff
3658      25 image/gif
3659      22 image/bmp
3660      22 audio/x-wav
3661      20 audio/x-flac
3662      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3663      18 video/x-ms-asf
3664      18 audio/x-musepack
3665      18 audio/x-mpeg
3666      18 application/x-ogg
3667      17 video/mpeg
3668      17 audio/x-scpls
3669      17 audio/ogg
3670      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3671 </pre>
3672
3673 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
3674
3675 <pre>
3676   count MIME type
3677   ----- -----------------------
3678      33 text/plain
3679      32 image/png
3680      32 image/jpeg
3681      29 audio/mpeg
3682      27 image/gif
3683      26 image/tiff
3684      26 application/ogg
3685      25 audio/x-mp3
3686      22 image/bmp
3687      21 audio/x-wav
3688      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3689      19 audio/x-mpeg
3690      18 video/mpeg
3691      18 audio/x-scpls
3692      18 audio/x-flac
3693      18 application/x-ogg
3694      17 video/x-ms-asf
3695      17 text/html
3696      17 audio/x-musepack
3697      16 image/x-xbitmap
3698 </pre>
3699
3700 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
3701
3702 <pre>
3703   count MIME type
3704   ----- -----------------------
3705      31 text/plain
3706      31 image/png
3707      31 image/jpeg
3708      29 audio/mpeg
3709      28 application/ogg
3710      27 image/gif
3711      26 image/tiff
3712      26 audio/x-mp3
3713      23 audio/x-wav
3714      22 image/bmp
3715      21 audio/x-flac
3716      20 audio/x-mpegurl
3717      19 audio/x-mpeg
3718      18 video/x-ms-asf
3719      18 video/mpeg
3720      18 audio/x-scpls
3721      18 application/x-ogg
3722      17 audio/x-musepack
3723      16 video/x-ms-wmv
3724      16 video/x-msvideo
3725 </pre>
3726
3727 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
3728 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
3729 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
3730 issues.</p>
3731
3732 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
3733 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
3734
3735       </div>
3736       <div class="tags">
3737
3738
3739         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>.
3740
3741
3742       </div>
3743     </div>
3744     <div class="padding"></div>
3745
3746     <div class="entry">
3747       <div class="title">
3748         <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>
3749       </div>
3750       <div class="date">
3751         15th January 2013
3752       </div>
3753       <div class="body">
3754         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
3755 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
3756 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
3757 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
3758 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
3759 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
3760 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
3761 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
3762 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
3763 packages.</p>
3764
3765 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
3766 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
3767 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
3768 modalias.</p>
3769
3770 <p><blockquote>
3771 Package: package-name
3772 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
3773 </blockquote></p>
3774
3775 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
3776 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
3777
3778 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
3779 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
3780
3781 <p><blockquote>
3782 Package: cheese
3783 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
3784 </blockquote></p>
3785
3786 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
3787 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
3788
3789 <p><blockquote>
3790 Package: pcmciautils
3791 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
3792 </blockquote></p>
3793
3794 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
3795 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
3796
3797 <p><blockquote>
3798 Package: colorhug-client
3799 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
3800 </blockquote></p>
3801
3802 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
3803 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
3804 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
3805
3806 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
3807 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
3808 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
3809 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
3810 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
3811 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
3812 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
3813 Raring.</p>
3814
3815 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
3816 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
3817 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
3818 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
3819 try the
3820 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
3821 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
3822 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
3823 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
3824
3825 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
3826 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
3827
3828 <p><blockquote>
3829 % ./hw-support-lookup
3830 <br>yubikey-personalization
3831 <br>%
3832 </blockquote></p>
3833
3834 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
3835 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
3836
3837 <p><blockquote>
3838 % ./hw-support-lookup
3839 <br>pcmciautils
3840 <br>%
3841 </blockquote></p>
3842
3843 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
3844 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
3845 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
3846
3847 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
3848 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
3849 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
3850 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
3851 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
3852 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
3853 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
3854 see if it work.</p>
3855
3856 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
3857 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
3858 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
3859 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
3860
3861       </div>
3862       <div class="tags">
3863
3864
3865         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3866
3867
3868       </div>
3869     </div>
3870     <div class="padding"></div>
3871
3872     <div class="entry">
3873       <div class="title">
3874         <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>
3875       </div>
3876       <div class="date">
3877         14th January 2013
3878       </div>
3879       <div class="body">
3880         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
3881 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
3882 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
3883 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
3884 in
3885 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
3886 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
3887
3888 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
3889
3890 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
3891 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
3892 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
3893 &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;,
3894 &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
3895 &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;.
3896
3897 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
3898 this shell script:</p>
3899
3900 <pre>
3901 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
3902 </pre>
3903
3904 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
3905 using modinfo:</p>
3906
3907 <pre>
3908 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
3909 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
3910 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
3911 %
3912 </pre>
3913
3914 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
3915
3916 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
3917 Bridge memory controller:</p>
3918
3919 <p><blockquote>
3920 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
3921 </blockquote></p>
3922
3923 <p>This represent these values:</p>
3924
3925 <pre>
3926  v   00008086  (vendor)
3927  d   00002770  (device)
3928  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
3929  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
3930  bc  06        (bus class)
3931  sc  00        (bus subclass)
3932  i   00        (interface)
3933 </pre>
3934
3935 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
3936 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
3937 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
3938 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
3939
3940 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
3941 means.</p>
3942
3943 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
3944
3945 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
3946 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
3947
3948 <p><blockquote>
3949 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
3950 </blockquote></p>
3951
3952 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
3953
3954 <pre>
3955  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
3956  p    0001  (device product)
3957  d    0206  (bcddevice)
3958  dc     09  (device class)
3959  dsc    00  (device subclass)
3960  dp     00  (device protocol)
3961  ic     09  (interface class)
3962  isc    00  (interface subclass)
3963  ip     00  (interface protocol)
3964 </pre>
3965
3966 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
3967 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
3968 these alias entries show up:</p>
3969
3970 <p><blockquote>
3971 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
3972 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
3973 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
3974 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
3975 </blockquote></p>
3976
3977 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
3978 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
3979 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
3980
3981 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
3982
3983 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
3984 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
3985
3986 <p><blockquote>
3987 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
3988 </blockquote></p>
3989
3990 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
3991
3992 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
3993
3994 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
3995 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
3996 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
3997
3998 <p><blockquote>
3999 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
4000 </blockquote></p>
4001
4002 <p>The values present are</p>
4003
4004 <pre>
4005  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
4006  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
4007  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
4008  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
4009  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
4010  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
4011  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
4012  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
4013  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
4014  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
4015  ct   10             (chassis type)
4016  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
4017 </pre>
4018
4019 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
4020 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
4021
4022 <pre>
4023   3 Desktop
4024   4 Low Profile Desktop
4025   5 Pizza Box
4026   6 Mini Tower
4027   7 Tower
4028   8 Portable
4029   9 Laptop
4030  10 Notebook
4031  11 Hand Held
4032  12 Docking Station
4033  13 All In One
4034  14 Sub Notebook
4035  15 Space-saving
4036  16 Lunch Box
4037  17 Main Server Chassis
4038  18 Expansion Chassis
4039  19 Sub Chassis
4040  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
4041  21 Peripheral Chassis
4042  22 RAID Chassis
4043  23 Rack Mount Chassis
4044  24 Sealed-case PC
4045  25 Multi-system
4046  26 CompactPCI
4047  27 AdvancedTCA
4048  28 Blade
4049  29 Blade Enclosing
4050 </pre>
4051
4052 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
4053 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
4054 claim it is a desktop.</p>
4055
4056 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
4057
4058 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
4059 test machine:</p>
4060
4061 <p><blockquote>
4062 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
4063 </blockquote></p>
4064
4065 <p>The values present are</p>
4066
4067 <pre>
4068   ty  01  (type)
4069   pr  00  (prototype)
4070   id  00  (id)
4071   ex  00  (extra)
4072 </pre>
4073
4074 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
4075 the valid values are.</p>
4076
4077 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
4078
4079 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
4080 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
4081 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
4082 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
4083 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
4084 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
4085 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
4086
4087 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
4088
4089 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
4090 one can use the following shell script:</p>
4091
4092 <pre>
4093   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
4094     echo "$id" ; \
4095     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
4096   done
4097 </pre>
4098
4099 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
4100 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
4101
4102 <pre>
4103   acpi:ACPI0003:
4104     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
4105   acpi:device:
4106   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
4107   acpi:IBM0068:
4108     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
4109     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
4110     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
4111     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
4112   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4113     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
4114     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
4115     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
4116   [...]
4117 </pre>
4118
4119 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4120 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4121 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4122 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4123
4124 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
4125 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
4126 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
4127
4128       </div>
4129       <div class="tags">
4130
4131
4132         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4133
4134
4135       </div>
4136     </div>
4137     <div class="padding"></div>
4138
4139     <div class="entry">
4140       <div class="title">
4141         <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>
4142       </div>
4143       <div class="date">
4144         10th January 2013
4145       </div>
4146       <div class="body">
4147         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
4148 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
4149 Launcher and updated the Debian package
4150 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
4151 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
4152 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
4153 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
4154 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
4155 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
4156 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
4157 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
4158 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
4159 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
4160 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
4161 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
4162 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
4163 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
4164 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
4165
4166       </div>
4167       <div class="tags">
4168
4169
4170         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4171
4172
4173       </div>
4174     </div>
4175     <div class="padding"></div>
4176
4177     <div class="entry">
4178       <div class="title">
4179         <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>
4180       </div>
4181       <div class="date">
4182          9th January 2013
4183       </div>
4184       <div class="body">
4185         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
4186 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
4187 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
4188 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
4189 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
4190 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
4191 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
4192 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
4193 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
4194 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
4195 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
4196
4197 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
4198 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
4199 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
4200 simple:
4201
4202 <ul>
4203
4204 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
4205   starting when a user log in.</li>
4206
4207 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
4208   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
4209
4210 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
4211   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
4212   packages.</li>
4213
4214 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
4215   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
4216
4217 </ul>
4218
4219 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
4220 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
4221 discover database to find packages and
4222 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
4223 packages.</p>
4224
4225 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
4226 draft package is now checked into
4227 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4228 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
4229 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
4230 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
4231 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
4232 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
4233 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
4234 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
4235 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
4236 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
4237 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
4238 because of the freeze).</p>
4239
4240 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
4241 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
4242 inserted):</p>
4243
4244 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
4245
4246 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
4247 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
4248 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
4249
4250 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
4251 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
4252 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
4253 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
4254 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
4255 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
4256 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
4257
4258 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
4259 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
4260 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
4261 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
4262 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
4263 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
4264 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
4265 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
4266 not be installed?</p>
4267
4268 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
4269 please send me an email. :)</p>
4270
4271       </div>
4272       <div class="tags">
4273
4274
4275         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4276
4277
4278       </div>
4279     </div>
4280     <div class="padding"></div>
4281
4282     <div class="entry">
4283       <div class="title">
4284         <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>
4285       </div>
4286       <div class="date">
4287          2nd January 2013
4288       </div>
4289       <div class="body">
4290         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
4291 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
4292 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
4293 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
4294 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
4295 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
4296 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
4297 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
4298 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
4299 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
4300
4301 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
4302 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
4303 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
4304
4305       </div>
4306       <div class="tags">
4307
4308
4309         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>.
4310
4311
4312       </div>
4313     </div>
4314     <div class="padding"></div>
4315
4316     <div class="entry">
4317       <div class="title">
4318         <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>
4319       </div>
4320       <div class="date">
4321         25th December 2012
4322       </div>
4323       <div class="body">
4324         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
4325 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
4326
4327 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
4328 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
4329 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
4330 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
4331 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
4332 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
4333 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
4334 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
4335 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
4336 name.</p>
4337
4338 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
4339 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
4340 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
4341
4342 <blockquote><pre>
4343 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
4344 cd bitcoin
4345 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
4346 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
4347 </pre></blockquote>
4348
4349 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
4350 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
4351 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
4352 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
4353 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
4354 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
4355 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
4356 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
4357 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
4358
4359 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4360 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4361 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4362
4363       </div>
4364       <div class="tags">
4365
4366
4367         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>.
4368
4369
4370       </div>
4371     </div>
4372     <div class="padding"></div>
4373
4374     <div class="entry">
4375       <div class="title">
4376         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
4377       </div>
4378       <div class="date">
4379         21st December 2012
4380       </div>
4381       <div class="body">
4382         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
4383 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
4384 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
4385 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
4386 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
4387 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
4388 is now maintained by a
4389 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
4390 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
4391 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
4392 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
4393 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
4394 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
4395 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
4396 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
4397 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
4398 Corallo in a
4399 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
4400 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
4401 Debian package.</p>
4402
4403 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
4404 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
4405 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
4406 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
4407 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
4408 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
4409 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
4410 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
4411 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
4412 new version to unstable.
4413
4414 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
4415 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
4416 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
4417 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
4418 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
4419 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
4420 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
4421 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
4422 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
4423 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
4424 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
4425 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
4426 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
4427 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
4428 have not tested them.</p>
4429
4430 <p>My
4431 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
4432 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
4433 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
4434 years ago, as can be
4435 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
4436 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
4437 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
4438 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
4439 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
4440 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
4441 the same address as last time,
4442 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4443
4444       </div>
4445       <div class="tags">
4446
4447
4448         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>.
4449
4450
4451       </div>
4452     </div>
4453     <div class="padding"></div>
4454
4455     <div class="entry">
4456       <div class="title">
4457         <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>
4458       </div>
4459       <div class="date">
4460          7th September 2012
4461       </div>
4462       <div class="body">
4463         <p>As I
4464 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
4465 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
4466 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
4467 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
4468 repository for the project</a>.</p>
4469
4470 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
4471 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
4472 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
4473 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
4474
4475 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
4476 PostScript formats at
4477 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
4478 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
4479
4480       </div>
4481       <div class="tags">
4482
4483
4484         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>.
4485
4486
4487       </div>
4488     </div>
4489     <div class="padding"></div>
4490
4491     <div class="entry">
4492       <div class="title">
4493         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
4494       </div>
4495       <div class="date">
4496         16th August 2012
4497       </div>
4498       <div class="body">
4499         <p>I dag fyller
4500 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
4501 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
4502 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
4503
4504       </div>
4505       <div class="tags">
4506
4507
4508         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>.
4509
4510
4511       </div>
4512     </div>
4513     <div class="padding"></div>
4514
4515     <div class="entry">
4516       <div class="title">
4517         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
4518       </div>
4519       <div class="date">
4520         24th June 2012
4521       </div>
4522       <div class="body">
4523         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
4524 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
4525 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
4526 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
4527 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
4528 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
4529 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
4530 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
4531 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
4532 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
4533 missing in my book.</p>
4534
4535 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
4536 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
4537 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
4538 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
4539 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
4540 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
4541 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
4542
4543       </div>
4544       <div class="tags">
4545
4546
4547         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>.
4548
4549
4550       </div>
4551     </div>
4552     <div class="padding"></div>
4553
4554     <div class="entry">
4555       <div class="title">
4556         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
4557       </div>
4558       <div class="date">
4559         21st November 2011
4560       </div>
4561       <div class="body">
4562         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
4563 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
4564 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
4565 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
4566 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
4567 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
4568 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
4569 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
4570 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
4571 the tools to do so.</p>
4572
4573 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
4574 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
4575 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
4576 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
4577
4578 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
4579 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
4580 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
4581 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
4582 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
4583 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
4584 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
4585 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
4586
4587 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
4588 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
4589 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
4590
4591 <p><pre>
4592 #!/usr/bin/perl
4593 use strict;
4594 use warnings;
4595 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
4596 BEGIN {
4597     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
4598     my %rhelmodules = (
4599         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
4600         );
4601     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
4602         eval "use $module;";
4603         if ($@) {
4604             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
4605             system("yum install -y $pkg");
4606             eval "use $module;";
4607         }
4608     }
4609 }
4610 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
4611
4612 upgrade_dell();
4613
4614 exit 0;
4615
4616 sub run_firmware_script {
4617     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
4618     unless ($script) {
4619         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
4620         exit 1
4621     }
4622     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
4623
4624     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
4625         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
4626     } else {
4627         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
4628     }
4629 }
4630
4631 sub run_firmware_scripts {
4632     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
4633     # Run firmware packages
4634     for my $dir (@dirs) {
4635         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
4636         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
4637         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
4638             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
4639             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
4640         }
4641         closedir $dh;
4642     }
4643 }
4644
4645 sub download {
4646     my $url = shift;
4647     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
4648     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
4649 }
4650
4651 sub upgrade_dell {
4652     my @dirs;
4653     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4654     chomp $product;
4655
4656     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
4657
4658         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
4659         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
4660
4661         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
4662             CLEANUP => 1
4663             );
4664         chdir($tmpdir);
4665         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
4666         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
4667         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
4668         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
4669         my $fwopts = "-q";
4670         if (@paths) {
4671             for my $url (@paths) {
4672                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
4673             }
4674             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
4675         } else {
4676             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4677             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4678         }
4679         chdir('/');
4680     } else {
4681         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4682         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4683     }
4684 }
4685
4686 sub fetch_dell_fw {
4687     my $path = shift;
4688     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
4689     download($url);
4690 }
4691
4692 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
4693 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
4694 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
4695 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
4696     my $filename = shift;
4697
4698     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4699     chomp $product;
4700     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
4701
4702     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
4703
4704     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
4705     my @paths;
4706     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
4707         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
4708         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
4709         my $oscode;
4710         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
4711             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
4712         } else {
4713             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
4714         }
4715         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
4716         {
4717             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
4718         }
4719     }
4720     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
4721         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
4722
4723         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
4724         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
4725
4726         my $cpath = $component->{path};
4727         for my $path (@paths) {
4728             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
4729                 push(@paths, $cpath);
4730             }
4731         }
4732     }
4733     return @paths;
4734 }
4735 </pre>
4736
4737 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
4738 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
4739 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
4740 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
4741 outdated.</p>
4742
4743       </div>
4744       <div class="tags">
4745
4746
4747         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>.
4748
4749
4750       </div>
4751     </div>
4752     <div class="padding"></div>
4753
4754     <div class="entry">
4755       <div class="title">
4756         <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>
4757       </div>
4758       <div class="date">
4759          4th August 2011
4760       </div>
4761       <div class="body">
4762         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
4763 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
4764 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
4765 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
4766 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
4767 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
4768 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
4769 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
4770 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
4771
4772 <p><blockquote>
4773 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
4774 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
4775 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
4776 </blockquote></p>
4777
4778 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
4779 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
4780 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
4781 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
4782 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
4783 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
4784 hard to explain.</p>
4785
4786 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
4787 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
4788 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
4789 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
4790 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
4791 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
4792 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
4793 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
4794 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
4795 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
4796 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
4797 mode).</p>
4798
4799 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
4800 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
4801 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
4802 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
4803 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
4804 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
4805 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
4806 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
4807 after visiting single user mode.</p>
4808
4809 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
4810 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
4811 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
4812 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
4813 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
4814 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
4815 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
4816 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
4817
4818 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
4819 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
4820 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
4821
4822       </div>
4823       <div class="tags">
4824
4825
4826         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>.
4827
4828
4829       </div>
4830     </div>
4831     <div class="padding"></div>
4832
4833     <div class="entry">
4834       <div class="title">
4835         <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>
4836       </div>
4837       <div class="date">
4838         30th July 2011
4839       </div>
4840       <div class="body">
4841         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
4842 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
4843 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
4844 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
4845 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
4846 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
4847 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
4848 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
4849 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
4850 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
4851 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
4852 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
4853 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
4854
4855 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
4856 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
4857 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
4858 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
4859 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
4860 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
4861 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
4862 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
4863 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
4864
4865 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
4866 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
4867 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
4868 is presented.</p>
4869
4870 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
4871 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
4872 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
4873 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
4874 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
4875 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
4876 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
4877 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
4878 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
4879 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
4880 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
4881 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
4882 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
4883 find time to push this forward.</p>
4884
4885       </div>
4886       <div class="tags">
4887
4888
4889         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>.
4890
4891
4892       </div>
4893     </div>
4894     <div class="padding"></div>
4895
4896     <div class="entry">
4897       <div class="title">
4898         <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>
4899       </div>
4900       <div class="date">
4901         29th July 2011
4902       </div>
4903       <div class="body">
4904         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
4905 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
4906 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
4907 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
4908 issues.</p>
4909
4910 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
4911 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
4912 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
4913
4914 <ol>
4915
4916 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
4917 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
4918 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
4919 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
4920 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
4921 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
4922 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
4923 Debian.</li>
4924
4925 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
4926 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
4927 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
4928 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
4929 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
4930 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
4931 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
4932 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
4933 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
4934 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
4935 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
4936 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
4937 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
4938
4939 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
4940 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
4941 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
4942 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
4943 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
4944 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
4945 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
4946 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
4947 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
4948 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
4949
4950 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
4951 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
4952 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
4953 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
4954 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
4955 latter behaviour.</li>
4956
4957 </ol>
4958
4959 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
4960 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
4961 it do not matter much.</p>
4962
4963 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
4964 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
4965 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
4966
4967       </div>
4968       <div class="tags">
4969
4970
4971         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>.
4972
4973
4974       </div>
4975     </div>
4976     <div class="padding"></div>
4977
4978     <div class="entry">
4979       <div class="title">
4980         <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>
4981       </div>
4982       <div class="date">
4983         26th July 2011
4984       </div>
4985       <div class="body">
4986         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
4987 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
4988 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
4989 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
4990 security support for a few years.</p>
4991
4992 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
4993 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
4994 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
4995 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
4996 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
4997 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
4998 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
4999 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
5000 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
5001 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
5002 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
5003 easier in the future.</p>
5004
5005 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
5006 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
5007 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
5008 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
5009 do not have time for.</p>
5010
5011       </div>
5012       <div class="tags">
5013
5014
5015         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>.
5016
5017
5018       </div>
5019     </div>
5020     <div class="padding"></div>
5021
5022     <div class="entry">
5023       <div class="title">
5024         <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>
5025       </div>
5026       <div class="date">
5027          3rd April 2011
5028       </div>
5029       <div class="body">
5030         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
5031 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
5032 update in English.</p>
5033
5034 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
5035 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
5036 of the British service
5037 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
5038 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
5039 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
5040 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
5041 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
5042 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
5043 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
5044 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
5045 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
5046 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
5047 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
5048 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
5049 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
5050
5051 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
5052 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
5053 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
5054 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
5055 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
5056 public infrastructure.</p>
5057
5058 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
5059 such service?</p>
5060
5061       </div>
5062       <div class="tags">
5063
5064
5065         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>.
5066
5067
5068       </div>
5069     </div>
5070     <div class="padding"></div>
5071
5072     <div class="entry">
5073       <div class="title">
5074         <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>
5075       </div>
5076       <div class="date">
5077         28th January 2011
5078       </div>
5079       <div class="body">
5080         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
5081 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
5082 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
5083 available on the Internet, and check our locally
5084 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
5085 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
5086 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
5087 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
5088 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
5089 out which security holes were present in our free software
5090 collection.</p>
5091
5092 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
5093 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
5094 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
5095 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
5096 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
5097 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
5098 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
5099 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
5100 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
5101 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
5102 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
5103 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
5104 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
5105 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
5106 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
5107 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
5108
5109 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
5110 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
5111 check out, one could look up
5112 <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
5113 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
5114 The most recent one is
5115 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
5116 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
5117 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
5118
5119 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
5120 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
5121 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
5122 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
5123 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
5124 security issues out.</p>
5125
5126 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
5127 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
5128 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
5129 RHEL is providing
5130 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
5131 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
5132 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
5133
5134 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
5135 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
5136 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
5137 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
5138 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
5139 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
5140 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
5141 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
5142 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
5143 established soon.</p>
5144
5145 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
5146 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
5147 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
5148 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
5149 for their packages.</p>
5150
5151       </div>
5152       <div class="tags">
5153
5154
5155         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>.
5156
5157
5158       </div>
5159     </div>
5160     <div class="padding"></div>
5161
5162     <div class="entry">
5163       <div class="title">
5164         <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>
5165       </div>
5166       <div class="date">
5167         23rd January 2011
5168       </div>
5169       <div class="body">
5170         <p>In the
5171 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
5172 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
5173 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
5174 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
5175 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
5176 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
5177 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
5178 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
5179 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
5180 one of my machines like this:</p>
5181
5182 <pre>
5183 loaded modules:
5184 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
5185 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
5186 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
5187 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
5188 10de:03ec pata_amd
5189 10de:03f6 sata_nv
5190 1022:1103 k8temp
5191 109e:036e bttv
5192 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
5193 11ab:4364 sky2
5194 </pre>
5195
5196 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
5197 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
5198
5199 <pre>
5200 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
5201     echo loaded pci modules:
5202     (
5203         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
5204         for address in * ; do
5205             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5206                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5207                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5208                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5209                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
5210                     echo "$id $module"
5211                 fi
5212             fi
5213         done
5214     )
5215     echo
5216 fi
5217 </pre>
5218
5219 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
5220 mappings:</p>
5221
5222 <pre>
5223 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
5224     echo loaded usb modules:
5225     (
5226         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
5227         for address in * ; do
5228             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5229                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5230                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5231                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5232                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
5233                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
5234                         echo "$id $module"
5235                     fi
5236                 fi
5237             fi
5238         done
5239     )
5240     echo
5241 fi
5242 </pre>
5243
5244 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
5245 well.</p>
5246
5247       </div>
5248       <div class="tags">
5249
5250
5251         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>.
5252
5253
5254       </div>
5255     </div>
5256     <div class="padding"></div>
5257
5258     <div class="entry">
5259       <div class="title">
5260         <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>
5261       </div>
5262       <div class="date">
5263         22nd December 2010
5264       </div>
5265       <div class="body">
5266         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
5267 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
5268 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
5269 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
5270 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
5271 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
5272 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
5273 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
5274 university.</p>
5275
5276 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
5277 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
5278 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
5279 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
5280 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
5281 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
5282 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
5283 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
5284
5285 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
5286 I perform on a new model.</p>
5287
5288 <ul>
5289
5290 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
5291 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
5292 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
5293
5294 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
5295 installation, X.org is working.</li>
5296
5297 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
5298 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
5299 reported by the program.</li>
5300
5301 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
5302 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
5303 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
5304 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
5305 normally test this by playing
5306 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
5307 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
5308
5309 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
5310 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5311
5312 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
5313 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
5314
5315 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
5316 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
5317
5318 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
5319 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
5320 few.</li>
5321
5322 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
5323 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
5324 notice this.</li>
5325
5326 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
5327 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
5328 resume.</li>
5329
5330 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
5331 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
5332 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
5333 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
5334 not.</li>
5335
5336 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
5337 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
5338 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
5339 existence.</li>
5340
5341 </ul>
5342
5343 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
5344 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
5345 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
5346 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
5347 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
5348 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
5349 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
5350 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
5351
5352       </div>
5353       <div class="tags">
5354
5355
5356         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>.
5357
5358
5359       </div>
5360     </div>
5361     <div class="padding"></div>
5362
5363     <div class="entry">
5364       <div class="title">
5365         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
5366       </div>
5367       <div class="date">
5368         11th December 2010
5369       </div>
5370       <div class="body">
5371         <p>As I continue to explore
5372 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
5373 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
5374 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
5375
5376 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
5377 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
5378 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
5379 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
5380 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
5381 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
5382 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
5383 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
5384 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
5385 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
5386 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
5387 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
5388 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
5389 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
5390 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
5391 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
5392 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
5393 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
5394 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
5395 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
5396
5397 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
5398 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
5399 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
5400 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
5401 If the Skolelinux foundation
5402 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
5403 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
5404 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
5405 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
5406 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
5407 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
5408 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
5409 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
5410
5411 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
5412 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
5413 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
5414 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
5415 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
5416 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
5417 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
5418 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
5419 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
5420 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
5421 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
5422 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
5423 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
5424 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
5425 currencies.</p>
5426
5427 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
5428 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
5429 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
5430 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
5431 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
5432 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
5433 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
5434 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
5435 BitCoins.  Check out
5436 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
5437 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
5438 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
5439 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
5440 yet.</p>
5441
5442 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
5443 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
5444 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
5445 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
5446 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
5447
5448       </div>
5449       <div class="tags">
5450
5451
5452         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>.
5453
5454
5455       </div>
5456     </div>
5457     <div class="padding"></div>
5458
5459     <div class="entry">
5460       <div class="title">
5461         <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>
5462       </div>
5463       <div class="date">
5464         10th December 2010
5465       </div>
5466       <div class="body">
5467         <p>With this weeks lawless
5468 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
5469 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
5470 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
5471 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
5472 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
5473 A blog post from
5474 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
5475 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
5476 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
5477 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
5478 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
5479 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
5480 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
5481
5482 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
5483 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
5484 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
5485 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
5486 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
5487 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
5488 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
5489 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
5490 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
5491 Debian</a> soon.</p>
5492
5493 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
5494 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
5495 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
5496 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
5497 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
5498 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
5499 you can even get
5500 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
5501 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
5502 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
5503 on the current exchange rates.</p>
5504
5505 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
5506 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
5507 donations to the address
5508 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
5509
5510       </div>
5511       <div class="tags">
5512
5513
5514         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>.
5515
5516
5517       </div>
5518     </div>
5519     <div class="padding"></div>
5520
5521     <div class="entry">
5522       <div class="title">
5523         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
5524       </div>
5525       <div class="date">
5526         27th November 2010
5527       </div>
5528       <div class="body">
5529         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
5530 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
5531 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
5532 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
5533 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
5534 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
5535 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
5536 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
5537
5538 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
5539 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
5540 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
5541 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
5542 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
5543 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
5544 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
5545 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
5546 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
5547 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
5548 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
5549
5550 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
5551 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
5552 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
5553 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
5554 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
5555 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
5556 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
5557 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
5558 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
5559 what is going on.</p>
5560
5561       </div>
5562       <div class="tags">
5563
5564
5565         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>.
5566
5567
5568       </div>
5569     </div>
5570     <div class="padding"></div>
5571
5572     <div class="entry">
5573       <div class="title">
5574         <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>
5575       </div>
5576       <div class="date">
5577         22nd November 2010
5578       </div>
5579       <div class="body">
5580         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
5581 upgrade testing of the
5582 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
5583 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
5584 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
5585 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
5586
5587 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
5588
5589 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5590
5591 <blockquote><p>
5592   apache2.2-bin
5593   aptdaemon
5594   baobab
5595   binfmt-support
5596   browser-plugin-gnash
5597   cheese-common
5598   cli-common
5599   cups-pk-helper
5600   dmz-cursor-theme
5601   empathy
5602   empathy-common
5603   freedesktop-sound-theme
5604   freeglut3
5605   gconf-defaults-service
5606   gdm-themes
5607   gedit-plugins
5608   geoclue
5609   geoclue-hostip
5610   geoclue-localnet
5611   geoclue-manual
5612   geoclue-yahoo
5613   gnash
5614   gnash-common
5615   gnome
5616   gnome-backgrounds
5617   gnome-cards-data
5618   gnome-codec-install
5619   gnome-core
5620   gnome-desktop-environment
5621   gnome-disk-utility
5622   gnome-screenshot
5623   gnome-search-tool
5624   gnome-session-canberra
5625   gnome-system-log
5626   gnome-themes-extras
5627   gnome-themes-more
5628   gnome-user-share
5629   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5630   gstreamer0.10-tools
5631   gtk2-engines
5632   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5633   gtk2-engines-smooth
5634   hamster-applet
5635   libapache2-mod-dnssd
5636   libapr1
5637   libaprutil1
5638   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
5639   libaprutil1-ldap
5640   libart2.0-cil
5641   libboost-date-time1.42.0
5642   libboost-python1.42.0
5643   libboost-thread1.42.0
5644   libchamplain-0.4-0
5645   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
5646   libcheese-gtk18
5647   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
5648   libcryptui0
5649   libdiscid0
5650   libelf1
5651   libepc-1.0-2
5652   libepc-common
5653   libepc-ui-1.0-2
5654   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5655   libfreerdp0
5656   libgconf2.0-cil
5657   libgdata-common
5658   libgdata7
5659   libgdu-gtk0
5660   libgee2
5661   libgeoclue0
5662   libgexiv2-0
5663   libgif4
5664   libglade2.0-cil
5665   libglib2.0-cil
5666   libgmime2.4-cil
5667   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5668   libgnome2.24-cil
5669   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
5670   libgpod-common
5671   libgpod4
5672   libgtk2.0-cil
5673   libgtkglext1
5674   libgtksourceview2.0-common
5675   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5676   libmono-addins0.2-cil
5677   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
5678   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5679   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
5680   libmono-posix2.0-cil
5681   libmono-security2.0-cil
5682   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5683   libmono-system2.0-cil
5684   libmtp8
5685   libmusicbrainz3-6
5686   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
5687   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
5688   libopal3.6.8
5689   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
5690   libpt2.6.7
5691   libpython2.6
5692   librpm1
5693   librpmio1
5694   libsdl1.2debian
5695   libsrtp0
5696   libssh-4
5697   libtelepathy-farsight0
5698   libtelepathy-glib0
5699   libtidy-0.99-0
5700   media-player-info
5701   mesa-utils
5702   mono-2.0-gac
5703   mono-gac
5704   mono-runtime
5705   nautilus-sendto
5706   nautilus-sendto-empathy
5707   p7zip-full
5708   pkg-config
5709   python-aptdaemon
5710   python-aptdaemon-gtk
5711   python-axiom
5712   python-beautifulsoup
5713   python-bugbuddy
5714   python-clientform
5715   python-coherence
5716   python-configobj
5717   python-crypto
5718   python-cupshelpers
5719   python-elementtree
5720   python-epsilon
5721   python-evolution
5722   python-feedparser
5723   python-gdata
5724   python-gdbm
5725   python-gst0.10
5726   python-gtkglext1
5727   python-gtksourceview2
5728   python-httplib2
5729   python-louie
5730   python-mako
5731   python-markupsafe
5732   python-mechanize
5733   python-nevow
5734   python-notify
5735   python-opengl
5736   python-openssl
5737   python-pam
5738   python-pkg-resources
5739   python-pyasn1
5740   python-pysqlite2
5741   python-rdflib
5742   python-serial
5743   python-tagpy
5744   python-twisted-bin
5745   python-twisted-conch
5746   python-twisted-core
5747   python-twisted-web
5748   python-utidylib
5749   python-webkit
5750   python-xdg
5751   python-zope.interface
5752   remmina
5753   remmina-plugin-data
5754   remmina-plugin-rdp
5755   remmina-plugin-vnc
5756   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5757   rhythmbox-plugins
5758   rpm-common
5759   rpm2cpio
5760   seahorse-plugins
5761   shotwell
5762   software-center
5763   system-config-printer-udev
5764   telepathy-gabble
5765   telepathy-mission-control-5
5766   telepathy-salut
5767   tomboy
5768   totem
5769   totem-coherence
5770   totem-mozilla
5771   totem-plugins
5772   transmission-common
5773   xdg-user-dirs
5774   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
5775   xserver-xephyr
5776 </p></blockquote>
5777
5778 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5779
5780 <blockquote><p>
5781   cheese
5782   ekiga
5783   eog
5784   epiphany-extensions
5785   evolution-exchange
5786   fast-user-switch-applet
5787   file-roller
5788   gcalctool
5789   gconf-editor
5790   gdm
5791   gedit
5792   gedit-common
5793   gnome-games
5794   gnome-games-data
5795   gnome-nettool
5796   gnome-system-tools
5797   gnome-themes
5798   gnuchess
5799   gucharmap
5800   guile-1.8-libs
5801   libavahi-ui0
5802   libdmx1
5803   libgalago3
5804   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
5805   libgtksourceview2.0-0
5806   liblircclient0
5807   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
5808   libspeexdsp1
5809   libsvga1
5810   rhythmbox
5811   seahorse
5812   sound-juicer
5813   system-config-printer
5814   totem-common
5815   transmission-gtk
5816   vinagre
5817   vino
5818 </p></blockquote>
5819
5820 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5821
5822 <blockquote><p>
5823   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5824 </p></blockquote>
5825
5826 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5827
5828 <blockquote><p>
5829 [nothing]
5830 </p></blockquote>
5831
5832 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
5833
5834 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
5835
5836 <blockquote><p>
5837   ksmserver
5838 </p></blockquote>
5839
5840 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
5841
5842 <blockquote><p>
5843   kwin
5844   network-manager-kde
5845 </p></blockquote>
5846
5847 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
5848
5849 <blockquote><p>
5850   arts
5851   dolphin
5852   freespacenotifier
5853   google-gadgets-gst
5854   google-gadgets-xul
5855   kappfinder
5856   kcalc
5857   kcharselect
5858   kde-core
5859   kde-plasma-desktop
5860   kde-standard
5861   kde-window-manager
5862   kdeartwork
5863   kdeartwork-emoticons
5864   kdeartwork-style
5865   kdeartwork-theme-icon
5866   kdebase
5867   kdebase-apps
5868   kdebase-workspace
5869   kdebase-workspace-bin
5870   kdebase-workspace-data
5871   kdeeject
5872   kdelibs
5873   kdeplasma-addons
5874   kdeutils
5875   kdewallpapers
5876   kdf
5877   kfloppy
5878   kgpg
5879   khelpcenter4
5880   kinfocenter
5881   konq-plugins-l10n
5882   konqueror-nsplugins
5883   kscreensaver
5884   kscreensaver-xsavers
5885   ktimer
5886   kwrite
5887   libgle3
5888   libkde4-ruby1.8
5889   libkonq5
5890   libkonq5-templates
5891   libnetpbm10
5892   libplasma-ruby
5893   libplasma-ruby1.8
5894   libqt4-ruby1.8
5895   marble-data
5896   marble-plugins
5897   netpbm
5898   nuvola-icon-theme
5899   plasma-dataengines-workspace
5900   plasma-desktop
5901   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
5902   plasma-runners-addons
5903   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
5904   plasma-scriptengine-python
5905   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
5906   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
5907   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
5908   plasma-scriptengines
5909   plasma-wallpapers-addons
5910   plasma-widget-folderview
5911   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
5912   ruby
5913   sweeper
5914   update-notifier-kde
5915   xscreensaver-data-extra
5916   xscreensaver-gl
5917   xscreensaver-gl-extra
5918   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
5919 </p></blockquote>
5920
5921 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
5922
5923 <blockquote><p>
5924   ark
5925   google-gadgets-common
5926   google-gadgets-qt
5927   htdig
5928   kate
5929   kdebase-bin
5930   kdebase-data
5931   kdepasswd
5932   kfind
5933   klipper
5934   konq-plugins
5935   konqueror
5936   ksysguard
5937   ksysguardd
5938   libarchive1
5939   libcln6
5940   libeet1
5941   libeina-svn-06
5942   libggadget-1.0-0b
5943   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
5944   libgps19
5945   libkdecorations4
5946   libkephal4
5947   libkonq4
5948   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
5949   libkscreensaver5
5950   libksgrd4
5951   libksignalplotter4
5952   libkunitconversion4
5953   libkwineffects1a
5954   libmarblewidget4
5955   libntrack-qt4-1
5956   libntrack0
5957   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
5958   libplasmaclock4a
5959   libplasmagenericshell4
5960   libprocesscore4a
5961   libprocessui4a
5962   libqalculate5
5963   libqedje0a
5964   libqtruby4shared2
5965   libqzion0a
5966   libruby1.8
5967   libscim8c2a
5968   libsmokekdecore4-3
5969   libsmokekdeui4-3
5970   libsmokekfile3
5971   libsmokekhtml3
5972   libsmokekio3
5973   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
5974   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
5975   libsmokekparts3
5976   libsmokektexteditor3
5977   libsmokekutils3
5978   libsmokenepomuk3
5979   libsmokephonon3
5980   libsmokeplasma3
5981   libsmokeqtcore4-3
5982   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
5983   libsmokeqtgui4-3
5984   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
5985   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
5986   libsmokeqtscript4-3
5987   libsmokeqtsql4-3
5988   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
5989   libsmokeqttest4-3
5990   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
5991   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
5992   libsmokeqtxml4-3
5993   libsmokesolid3
5994   libsmokesoprano3
5995   libtaskmanager4a
5996   libtidy-0.99-0
5997   libweather-ion4a
5998   libxklavier16
5999   libxxf86misc1
6000   okteta
6001   oxygencursors
6002   plasma-dataengines-addons
6003   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
6004   plasma-widget-lancelot
6005   plasma-widgets-addons
6006   plasma-widgets-workspace
6007   polkit-kde-1
6008   ruby1.8
6009   systemsettings
6010   update-notifier-common
6011 </p></blockquote>
6012
6013 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
6014 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
6015 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
6016 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
6017
6018       </div>
6019       <div class="tags">
6020
6021
6022         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>.
6023
6024
6025       </div>
6026     </div>
6027     <div class="padding"></div>
6028
6029     <div class="entry">
6030       <div class="title">
6031         <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>
6032       </div>
6033       <div class="date">
6034         22nd November 2010
6035       </div>
6036       <div class="body">
6037         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
6038 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
6039 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
6040 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
6041 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
6042 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
6043 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
6044 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
6045 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
6046
6047 <p>I found
6048 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
6049 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
6050 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
6051 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
6052 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
6053 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
6054
6055 <pre>
6056 #!/bin/sh
6057
6058 # Based on
6059 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
6060
6061 set -e
6062 set -x
6063
6064 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
6065     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
6066     exit 1
6067 else
6068     host="$1"
6069 fi
6070
6071 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
6072     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
6073     exit 1
6074 fi
6075
6076 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
6077 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6078 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6079 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
6080
6081 img=$host.img
6082 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
6083 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
6084
6085 parted $img mklabel msdos
6086 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
6087 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
6088 parted $img set 1 boot on
6089
6090 modprobe dm-mod
6091 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
6092 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
6093
6094 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
6095 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
6096 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
6097
6098 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
6099 losetup -d /dev/loop0
6100 </pre>
6101
6102 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
6103 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
6104
6105 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
6106 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
6107 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
6108 seem to work just fine.</p>
6109
6110       </div>
6111       <div class="tags">
6112
6113
6114         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>.
6115
6116
6117       </div>
6118     </div>
6119     <div class="padding"></div>
6120
6121     <div class="entry">
6122       <div class="title">
6123         <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>
6124       </div>
6125       <div class="date">
6126         20th November 2010
6127       </div>
6128       <div class="body">
6129         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
6130 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6131 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
6132 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
6133
6134 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
6135 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
6136 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
6137
6138 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6139
6140 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6141
6142 <blockquote><p>
6143   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
6144   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
6145   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
6146   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
6147   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
6148   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
6149   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
6150   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
6151   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
6152   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
6153   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6154   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6155   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
6156   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
6157   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
6158   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
6159   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6160   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
6161   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6162   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
6163   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
6164   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6165   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
6166   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
6167   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
6168   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6169   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6170   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
6171   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6172   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
6173   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
6174   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6175   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
6176   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
6177   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
6178   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
6179   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
6180   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
6181   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
6182   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
6183   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
6184   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
6185   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
6186   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
6187   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
6188   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
6189   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
6190   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
6191   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
6192   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
6193   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
6194   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
6195   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6196   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
6197   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
6198   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
6199   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
6200   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
6201   zip
6202 </p></blockquote>
6203
6204 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
6205
6206 <blockquote><p>
6207   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
6208   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
6209   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
6210   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
6211   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
6212   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
6213   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
6214   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
6215   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
6216   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
6217   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
6218   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6219   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6220   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6221   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6222   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
6223   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6224   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
6225   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
6226   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
6227   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
6228   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
6229   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6230   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
6231   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
6232   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
6233   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
6234   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
6235   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
6236 </p></blockquote>
6237
6238 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6239
6240 <blockquote><p>
6241   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6242 </p></blockquote>
6243
6244 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6245
6246 <blockquote><p>
6247 [nothing]
6248 </p></blockquote>
6249
6250 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6251
6252 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6253
6254 <blockquote><p>
6255   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
6256   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6257   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
6258   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
6259   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
6260   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
6261   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6262   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
6263   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
6264   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6265   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
6266   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
6267   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
6268   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
6269   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
6270   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
6271   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
6272   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
6273   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
6274   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
6275   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
6276   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
6277   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
6278   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
6279   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
6280   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
6281   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
6282   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
6283   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
6284   ttf-sazanami-gothic
6285 </p></blockquote>
6286
6287 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6288
6289 <blockquote><p>
6290   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
6291   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
6292   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
6293   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
6294   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
6295   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
6296   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
6297   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
6298   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
6299   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
6300   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
6301   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
6302   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
6303   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
6304   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6305   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6306   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
6307   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
6308   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6309   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
6310   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6311   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
6312   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6313   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6314   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
6315   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
6316   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
6317   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
6318   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
6319   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
6320   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
6321   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
6322   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
6323 </p></blockquote>
6324
6325 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6326
6327 <blockquote><p>
6328   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
6329   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
6330   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
6331   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
6332   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6333   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
6334   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6335 </p></blockquote>
6336
6337 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6338
6339 <blockquote><p>
6340   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
6341 </p></blockquote>
6342
6343       </div>
6344       <div class="tags">
6345
6346
6347         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>.
6348
6349
6350       </div>
6351     </div>
6352     <div class="padding"></div>
6353
6354     <div class="entry">
6355       <div class="title">
6356         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
6357       </div>
6358       <div class="date">
6359         20th November 2010
6360       </div>
6361       <div class="body">
6362         <p>Answering
6363 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
6364 call from the Gnash project</a> for
6365 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
6366 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
6367 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
6368 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
6369 releases out more often.</p>
6370
6371 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
6372 I have considered setting up a <a
6373 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
6374 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
6375 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
6376 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
6377 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
6378 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
6379 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
6380 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
6381 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
6382 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
6383 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
6384 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
6385
6386       </div>
6387       <div class="tags">
6388
6389
6390         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>.
6391
6392
6393       </div>
6394     </div>
6395     <div class="padding"></div>
6396
6397     <div class="entry">
6398       <div class="title">
6399         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
6400       </div>
6401       <div class="date">
6402          9th November 2010
6403       </div>
6404       <div class="body">
6405         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
6406
6407 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
6408 3D linked in from
6409 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
6410 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
6411
6412       </div>
6413       <div class="tags">
6414
6415
6416         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>.
6417
6418
6419       </div>
6420     </div>
6421     <div class="padding"></div>
6422
6423     <div class="entry">
6424       <div class="title">
6425         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
6426       </div>
6427       <div class="date">
6428         24th October 2010
6429       </div>
6430       <div class="body">
6431         <p>Some updates.</p>
6432
6433 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
6434 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
6435 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
6436 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
6437 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
6438 :)</p>
6439
6440 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
6441 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
6442 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
6443 It is called
6444 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
6445 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
6446 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
6447 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
6448 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
6449 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
6450
6451 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
6452 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
6453 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
6454 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
6455 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
6456 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
6457 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
6458 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
6459 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
6460 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
6461
6462       </div>
6463       <div class="tags">
6464
6465
6466         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>.
6467
6468
6469       </div>
6470     </div>
6471     <div class="padding"></div>
6472
6473     <div class="entry">
6474       <div class="title">
6475         <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>
6476       </div>
6477       <div class="date">
6478          4th September 2010
6479       </div>
6480       <div class="body">
6481         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
6482 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
6483 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
6484 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
6485 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
6486 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
6487 installed.</p>
6488
6489 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
6490 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
6491 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
6492 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
6493 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6494 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
6495 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
6496 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
6497 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
6498
6499 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
6500 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
6501 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
6502 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
6503 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
6504 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
6505 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
6506 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
6507 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
6508 pages they want to visit.</p>
6509
6510 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
6511 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
6512 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
6513 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
6514 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
6515 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
6516 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
6517 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
6518 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
6519 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
6520 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
6521
6522       </div>
6523       <div class="tags">
6524
6525
6526         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>.
6527
6528
6529       </div>
6530     </div>
6531     <div class="padding"></div>
6532
6533     <div class="entry">
6534       <div class="title">
6535         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
6536       </div>
6537       <div class="date">
6538         27th July 2010
6539       </div>
6540       <div class="body">
6541         <p>I discovered this while doing
6542 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
6543 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
6544 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
6545 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
6546 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
6547
6548 <p>An example is from todays
6549 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
6550 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
6551 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
6552 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
6553 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
6554 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
6555 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
6556
6557 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
6558
6559 <blockquote><pre>
6560 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
6561  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
6562   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
6563 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
6564  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
6565 </pre></blockquote>
6566
6567 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
6568 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
6569 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
6570 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
6571 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
6572 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
6573 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
6574 of dependency loops.</p>
6575
6576 <p>Thanks to
6577 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
6578 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
6579 dependencies
6580 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
6581 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
6582
6583 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
6584 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
6585 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
6586 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
6587 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
6588 it.</p>
6589
6590       </div>
6591       <div class="tags">
6592
6593
6594         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6595
6596
6597       </div>
6598     </div>
6599     <div class="padding"></div>
6600
6601     <div class="entry">
6602       <div class="title">
6603         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html">What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</a>
6604       </div>
6605       <div class="date">
6606         17th July 2010
6607       </div>
6608       <div class="body">
6609         <p>This is a
6610 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
6611 on my
6612 <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
6613 work</a> on
6614 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
6615 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
6616
6617 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
6618 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
6619 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
6620 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
6621
6622 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
6623 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
6624 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
6625
6626 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
6627
6628 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
6629 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
6630 the web.
6631
6632 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
6633 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
6634 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
6635 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
6636 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
6637 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
6638
6639 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
6640 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
6641 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
6642 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
6643 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
6644 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
6645 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
6646 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
6647 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
6648 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
6649 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
6650 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
6651 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
6652 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
6653 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
6654 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
6655
6656 <blockquote><pre>
6657 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6658   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6659   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6660   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6661   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6662   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6663   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6664
6665 ldapsearch -h ldap \
6666   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
6667   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
6668   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
6669   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
6670   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
6671 </pre></blockquote>
6672
6673 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
6674 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
6675 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
6676 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6677 also exist.</p>
6678
6679 <blockquote><pre>
6680 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6681 objectclass: top
6682 objectclass: dnsdomain
6683 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6684 dc: tjener
6685 arecord: 10.0.2.2
6686 associateddomain: tjener.intern
6687
6688 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6689 objectclass: top
6690 objectclass: dnsdomain2
6691 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6692 dc: 2
6693 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
6694 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
6695 </pre></blockquote>
6696
6697 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
6698 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
6699 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
6700 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
6701 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
6702 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
6703 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
6704 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
6705 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
6706 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
6707 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
6708 instead.</p>
6709
6710 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
6711 like this:</p>
6712
6713 <blockquote><pre>
6714 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6715   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
6716   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
6717   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
6718   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
6719   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
6720
6721 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
6722   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
6723 </pre></blockquote>
6724
6725 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
6726 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
6727 reverse lookups.</p>
6728
6729 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
6730 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
6731 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
6732 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
6733
6734 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
6735 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
6736 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
6737
6738 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
6739 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
6740 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
6741 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
6742 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
6743
6744 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
6745 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
6746 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
6747 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
6748 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
6749
6750 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
6751 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
6752 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
6753 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
6754 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
6755 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
6756
6757 <blockquote><pre>
6758 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
6759     SUP top
6760     AUXILIARY
6761     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
6762           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
6763           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
6764           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
6765           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
6766     ))
6767 </pre></blockquote>
6768
6769 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
6770 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
6771 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
6772 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
6773 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
6774 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
6775
6776 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
6777
6778 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
6779 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
6780 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
6781 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
6782 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
6783
6784 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
6785 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
6786 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
6787 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
6788
6789 <blockquote><pre>
6790 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
6791 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
6792 </pre></blockquote>
6793
6794 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
6795 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
6796 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
6797 search result is this entry:</p>
6798
6799 <blockquote><pre>
6800 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6801 cn: dhcp
6802 objectClass: top
6803 objectClass: dhcpServer
6804 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6805 </pre></blockquote>
6806
6807 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
6808 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
6809 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
6810 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
6811 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
6812 The search result is this entry:</p>
6813
6814 <blockquote><pre>
6815 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6816 cn: DHCP Config
6817 objectClass: top
6818 objectClass: dhcpService
6819 objectClass: dhcpOptions
6820 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6821 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
6822 dhcpStatements: authoritative
6823 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
6824 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
6825 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
6826 </pre></blockquote>
6827
6828 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
6829 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
6830 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
6831 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
6832 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
6833 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
6834 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
6835 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
6836 related computer objects.</p>
6837
6838 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
6839 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
6840 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
6841 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
6842 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
6843 like:</p>
6844
6845 <blockquote><pre>
6846 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6847 cn: hostname
6848 objectClass: top
6849 objectClass: dhcpHost
6850 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6851 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
6852 </pre></blockquote>
6853
6854 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
6855 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
6856 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
6857 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
6858 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
6859 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
6860 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
6861 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
6862 structural object class.
6863
6864 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
6865
6866 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
6867 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
6868 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
6869 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
6870 in the configuration.</p>
6871
6872 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
6873 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
6874 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
6875 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
6876 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
6877 structure.</p>
6878
6879 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
6880 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
6881
6882 <blockquote><pre>
6883 ou=services
6884   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
6885     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
6886     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6887       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6888         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6889     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6890       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6891         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6892     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
6893       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
6894 </pre></blockquote>
6895
6896 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
6897 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
6898 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
6899 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
6900
6901 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
6902 like this:</p>
6903
6904 <blockquote><pre>
6905 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6906 dc: hostname
6907 objectClass: top
6908 objectClass: dhcpHost
6909 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6910 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
6911 associateddomain: hostname.intern
6912 arecord: 10.11.12.13
6913 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6914 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
6915 </pre></blockquote>
6916
6917 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
6918 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
6919 auxiliary object class.</p>
6920
6921       </div>
6922       <div class="tags">
6923
6924
6925         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>.
6926
6927
6928       </div>
6929     </div>
6930     <div class="padding"></div>
6931
6932     <div class="entry">
6933       <div class="title">
6934         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
6935       </div>
6936       <div class="date">
6937         14th July 2010
6938       </div>
6939       <div class="body">
6940         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
6941 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
6942 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
6943 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
6944 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
6945
6946 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
6947 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
6948
6949 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
6950 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
6951 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
6952 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
6953 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
6954 to a slave DNS server.</p>
6955
6956 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
6957 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
6958 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
6959 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
6960 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
6961 seem to work.</p>
6962
6963 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
6964 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
6965 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
6966 this:</p>
6967
6968 <blockquote><pre>
6969   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6970   cn: hostname
6971   objectClass: dhcphost
6972   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6973   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
6974   associateddomain: hostname.intern
6975   arecord: 10.11.12.13
6976   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
6977   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
6978   ldapconfigsound: Y
6979 </pre></blockquote>
6980
6981 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
6982 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
6983 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
6984 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
6985
6986 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
6987 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
6988 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
6989 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
6990 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
6991 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
6992 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
6993 might be a good place to put it.</p>
6994
6995 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6996 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
6997
6998       </div>
6999       <div class="tags">
7000
7001
7002         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>.
7003
7004
7005       </div>
7006     </div>
7007     <div class="padding"></div>
7008
7009     <div class="entry">
7010       <div class="title">
7011         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
7012       </div>
7013       <div class="date">
7014         11th July 2010
7015       </div>
7016       <div class="body">
7017         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
7018 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
7019 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
7020 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
7021
7022 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
7023 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
7024 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
7025 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
7026 LTSP clients.</p>
7027
7028 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
7029 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
7030 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
7031
7032 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
7033 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
7034 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
7035
7036 <blockquote><pre>
7037 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
7038 #
7039 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
7040 #
7041 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
7042 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
7043 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
7044 #
7045 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
7046 # existence of attribute names.
7047 #
7048 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
7049 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
7050 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
7051 #
7052 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
7053 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
7054 #
7055 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
7056 #     SUP top
7057 #     AUXILIARY
7058 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
7059
7060 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
7061 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
7062     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
7063     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
7064         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
7065         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
7066             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
7067             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
7068             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
7069             # bass value on to clients
7070             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
7071         done
7072     done
7073 fi
7074 </pre></blockquote>
7075
7076 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
7077 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
7078 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
7079 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
7080 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
7081
7082 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7083 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7084
7085 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
7086 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
7087 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
7088 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
7089 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
7090 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
7091
7092       </div>
7093       <div class="tags">
7094
7095
7096         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>.
7097
7098
7099       </div>
7100     </div>
7101     <div class="padding"></div>
7102
7103     <div class="entry">
7104       <div class="title">
7105         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7106       </div>
7107       <div class="date">
7108          9th July 2010
7109       </div>
7110       <div class="body">
7111         <p>Since
7112 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
7113 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
7114 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
7115 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
7116 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
7117 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
7118 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
7119 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
7120 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
7121 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
7122 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
7123 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
7124 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
7125
7126       </div>
7127       <div class="tags">
7128
7129
7130         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>.
7131
7132
7133       </div>
7134     </div>
7135     <div class="padding"></div>
7136
7137     <div class="entry">
7138       <div class="title">
7139         <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>
7140       </div>
7141       <div class="date">
7142          3rd July 2010
7143       </div>
7144       <div class="body">
7145         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
7146 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
7147 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
7148 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
7149 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
7150 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
7151 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
7152 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
7153
7154 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
7155 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
7156 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
7157 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
7158 publish the difference.</p>
7159
7160 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7161
7162 <blockquote><p>
7163   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7164   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
7165   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
7166   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7167   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
7168   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7169   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
7170   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
7171 </p></blockquote>
7172
7173 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7174
7175 <blockquote><p>
7176   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
7177   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
7178   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
7179   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
7180   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
7181   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
7182   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7183   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
7184   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7185   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7186   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
7187   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
7188   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
7189   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
7190   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
7191   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
7192   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
7193   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
7194   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
7195   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
7196 </p></blockquote>
7197
7198 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7199
7200 <blockquote><p>
7201   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
7202   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
7203   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7204   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7205   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
7206   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
7207   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
7208   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7209   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7210   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7211   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7212   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
7213   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
7214   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
7215   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
7216   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
7217   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
7218   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
7219   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
7220   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
7221   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
7222 </p></blockquote>
7223
7224 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7225
7226 <blockquote><p>
7227   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
7228   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
7229   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
7230 </p></blockquote>
7231
7232 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
7233 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
7234 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
7235 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
7236 the difference somewhat.
7237
7238       </div>
7239       <div class="tags">
7240
7241
7242         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>.
7243
7244
7245       </div>
7246     </div>
7247     <div class="padding"></div>
7248
7249     <div class="entry">
7250       <div class="title">
7251         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7252       </div>
7253       <div class="date">
7254         28th June 2010
7255       </div>
7256       <div class="body">
7257         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
7258 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
7259 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
7260 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
7261 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
7262 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
7263 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
7264 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
7265 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
7266 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
7267
7268 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
7269 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
7270 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
7271 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
7272 released.</p>
7273
7274 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
7275 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
7276 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
7277 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
7278
7279 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
7280 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7281
7282 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
7283 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
7284 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
7285 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
7286 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
7287
7288       </div>
7289       <div class="tags">
7290
7291
7292         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>.
7293
7294
7295       </div>
7296     </div>
7297     <div class="padding"></div>
7298
7299     <div class="entry">
7300       <div class="title">
7301         <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>
7302       </div>
7303       <div class="date">
7304         24th June 2010
7305       </div>
7306       <div class="body">
7307         <p>A while back, I
7308 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
7309 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
7310 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
7311 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
7312
7313 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
7314 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
7315 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
7316 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
7317
7318 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
7319 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
7320 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
7321 Debian Edu.</p>
7322
7323 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
7324 the
7325 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
7326 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
7327 available today from IETF.</p>
7328
7329 <pre>
7330 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
7331 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
7332 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
7333  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
7334         NAME 'dhcpHost'
7335         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
7336 -       SUP top
7337 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
7338         MUST cn
7339         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
7340         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
7341 </pre>
7342
7343 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
7344 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
7345 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
7346
7347 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7348 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7349
7350       </div>
7351       <div class="tags">
7352
7353
7354         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>.
7355
7356
7357       </div>
7358     </div>
7359     <div class="padding"></div>
7360
7361     <div class="entry">
7362       <div class="title">
7363         <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>
7364       </div>
7365       <div class="date">
7366         16th June 2010
7367       </div>
7368       <div class="body">
7369         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
7370 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
7371 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
7372 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
7373 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
7374 this:
7375
7376 <blockquote><pre>
7377 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7378 tasksel --new-install
7379 </pre></blockquote>
7380
7381 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
7382 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
7383 any output what so ever.
7384
7385 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
7386 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
7387 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
7388 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
7389 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
7390 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
7391 code like this:
7392
7393 <blockquote><pre>
7394 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7395 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
7396 $cmd
7397 </pre></blockquote>
7398
7399 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
7400 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
7401 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
7402 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
7403 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
7404 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
7405 installation.</p>
7406
7407 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
7408 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
7409 like this.</p>
7410
7411       </div>
7412       <div class="tags">
7413
7414
7415         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>.
7416
7417
7418       </div>
7419     </div>
7420     <div class="padding"></div>
7421
7422     <div class="entry">
7423       <div class="title">
7424         <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>
7425       </div>
7426       <div class="date">
7427         13th June 2010
7428       </div>
7429       <div class="body">
7430         <p>My
7431 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
7432 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
7433 finally made the upgrade logs available from
7434 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
7435 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
7436 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
7437 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
7438
7439 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
7440 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
7441 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
7442 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
7443 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
7444 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
7445 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
7446 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
7447
7448 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
7449 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
7450 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
7451 too surprising.</p>
7452
7453 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
7454 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
7455 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
7456 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
7457 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
7458 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
7459 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
7460 continue.</p>
7461
7462 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
7463 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
7464   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
7465   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
7466   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
7467   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
7468   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
7469   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7470   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7471   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7472   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7473   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7474   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7475   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7476   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7477   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7478   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7479   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7480   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7481   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7482   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7483   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7484   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7485   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7486   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7487   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7488   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7489   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7490   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
7491   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
7492
7493 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
7494
7495 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
7496   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
7497   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
7498   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
7499   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7500   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
7501   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
7502   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
7503   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
7504   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
7505   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7506   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
7507   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7508   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
7509   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
7510   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
7511   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
7512   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
7513   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
7514   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
7515   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
7516   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
7517   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
7518   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
7519   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7520   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
7521   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
7522   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
7523   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
7524   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7525   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7526   zip</p>
7527
7528 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
7529
7530 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
7531   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
7532   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
7533   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
7534   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
7535   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
7536   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7537   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7538   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
7539   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
7540   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
7541   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
7542   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7543   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7544   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7545   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7546   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7547   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
7548   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
7549   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
7550   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
7551   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
7552   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
7553   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
7554   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
7555   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
7556   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
7557   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
7558
7559 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
7560 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
7561   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
7562   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
7563   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
7564   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
7565   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
7566   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
7567   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
7568   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
7569   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
7570   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
7571   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
7572   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
7573   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
7574   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
7575   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
7576   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
7577   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
7578   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
7579   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
7580   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
7581   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
7582   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
7583   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
7584   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
7585   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
7586   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
7587   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
7588   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
7589   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
7590   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
7591   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
7592   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
7593   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
7594   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
7595   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
7596   xulrunner-1.9</p>
7597
7598
7599       </div>
7600       <div class="tags">
7601
7602
7603         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>.
7604
7605
7606       </div>
7607     </div>
7608     <div class="padding"></div>
7609
7610     <div class="entry">
7611       <div class="title">
7612         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
7613       </div>
7614       <div class="date">
7615         11th June 2010
7616       </div>
7617       <div class="body">
7618         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
7619 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
7620 have been discovered and reported in the process
7621 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
7622 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
7623 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
7624 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
7625 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
7626
7627 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
7628 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
7629 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
7630 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
7631 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
7632 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
7633
7634 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
7635 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
7636 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7637 is created.  The bug report
7638 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
7639 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
7640 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
7641 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
7642 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
7643 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
7644 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
7645 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
7646 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
7647 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
7648 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
7649 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
7650 Debian Squeeze.</p>
7651
7652 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
7653 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
7654 trick:</p>
7655
7656 <blockquote><pre>
7657 #!/bin/sh
7658 set -ex
7659
7660 if [ "$1" ] ; then
7661     desktop=$1
7662 else
7663     desktop=gnome
7664 fi
7665
7666 from=lenny
7667 to=squeeze
7668
7669 exec &lt; /dev/null
7670 unset LANG
7671 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
7672 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
7673 fuser -mv .
7674 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
7675 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7676 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
7677 #!/bin/sh
7678 exit 101
7679 EOF
7680 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
7681 exit_cleanup() {
7682     umount $tmpdir/proc
7683 }
7684 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
7685 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
7686 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
7687
7688 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
7689
7690 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
7691 # to return the correct answers.
7692 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
7693     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
7694
7695 # Include the desktop and laptop task
7696 for test in desktop laptop ; do
7697     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
7698 #!/bin/sh
7699 exit 2
7700 EOF
7701     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
7702 done
7703
7704 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
7705 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
7706 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
7707 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
7708
7709 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
7710 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
7711 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
7712 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
7713 fuser -mv
7714 </pre></blockquote>
7715
7716 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
7717 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
7718 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
7719 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
7720 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
7721 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
7722
7723 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
7724 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
7725 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
7726 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
7727 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
7728 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
7729 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
7730
7731 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
7732 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
7733 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
7734 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
7735 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
7736 packages.</p>
7737
7738       </div>
7739       <div class="tags">
7740
7741
7742         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>.
7743
7744
7745       </div>
7746     </div>
7747     <div class="padding"></div>
7748
7749     <div class="entry">
7750       <div class="title">
7751         <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>
7752       </div>
7753       <div class="date">
7754          6th June 2010
7755       </div>
7756       <div class="body">
7757         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
7758 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
7759 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
7760 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
7761 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
7762 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
7763 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
7764
7765 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
7766 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
7767 COLUMNS):</p>
7768
7769 <blockquote><pre>
7770 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
7771 previous=N
7772 PREVLEVEL=
7773 RUNLEVEL=
7774 runlevel=S
7775 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
7776 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
7777 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
7778 </pre></blockquote>
7779
7780 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
7781 script.</p>
7782
7783 <blockquote><pre>
7784 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
7785 previous=N
7786 PREVLEVEL=N
7787 RUNLEVEL=S
7788 runlevel=S
7789 </pre></blockquote>
7790
7791 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
7792 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
7793 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
7794
7795 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
7796 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
7797 choice.</p>
7798
7799       </div>
7800       <div class="tags">
7801
7802
7803         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>.
7804
7805
7806       </div>
7807     </div>
7808     <div class="padding"></div>
7809
7810     <div class="entry">
7811       <div class="title">
7812         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
7813       </div>
7814       <div class="date">
7815          6th June 2010
7816       </div>
7817       <div class="body">
7818         <p>Via the
7819 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
7820 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
7821 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
7822 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
7823 following the standards wars of today.</p>
7824
7825       </div>
7826       <div class="tags">
7827
7828
7829         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>.
7830
7831
7832       </div>
7833     </div>
7834     <div class="padding"></div>
7835
7836     <div class="entry">
7837       <div class="title">
7838         <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>
7839       </div>
7840       <div class="date">
7841          3rd June 2010
7842       </div>
7843       <div class="body">
7844         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
7845 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
7846 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
7847 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
7848 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
7849
7850 <blockquote><pre>
7851 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
7852   vendor                    count
7853   Dell Computer Corporation     1
7854     PowerEdge 1750              1
7855   IBM                           1
7856     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
7857   Intel                         2
7858   [no-dmi-info]                 3
7859 maintainer:~#
7860 </pre></blockquote>
7861
7862 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
7863 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
7864 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
7865 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
7866 option to list the individual machines.</p>
7867
7868 <p>A larger list is
7869 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
7870 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
7871 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
7872 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
7873 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
7874 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
7875 collector.</p>
7876
7877       </div>
7878       <div class="tags">
7879
7880
7881         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>.
7882
7883
7884       </div>
7885     </div>
7886     <div class="padding"></div>
7887
7888     <div class="entry">
7889       <div class="title">
7890         <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>
7891       </div>
7892       <div class="date">
7893          1st June 2010
7894       </div>
7895       <div class="body">
7896         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
7897 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
7898 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
7899 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
7900 wait.</p>
7901
7902 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
7903 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
7904 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
7905 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
7906 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
7907 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
7908
7909 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
7910 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
7911 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
7912 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
7913 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
7914 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
7915 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
7916 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
7917
7918 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
7919
7920       </div>
7921       <div class="tags">
7922
7923
7924         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>.
7925
7926
7927       </div>
7928     </div>
7929     <div class="padding"></div>
7930
7931     <div class="entry">
7932       <div class="title">
7933         <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>
7934       </div>
7935       <div class="date">
7936         27th May 2010
7937       </div>
7938       <div class="body">
7939         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
7940 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
7941 issues are known and should be solved:
7942
7943 <p><ul>
7944
7945 <li>The wicd package seen to
7946 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
7947 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
7948 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
7949 seem to be on the case.</li>
7950
7951 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
7952 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
7953 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
7954 maintainer is on the case.</li>
7955
7956 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
7957 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
7958 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
7959 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
7960 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
7961 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
7962 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
7963 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
7964
7965 </ul></p>
7966
7967 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
7968 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
7969 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
7970 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
7971
7972 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7973 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7974 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
7975 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
7976
7977 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
7978
7979       </div>
7980       <div class="tags">
7981
7982
7983         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>.
7984
7985
7986       </div>
7987     </div>
7988     <div class="padding"></div>
7989
7990     <div class="entry">
7991       <div class="title">
7992         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
7993       </div>
7994       <div class="date">
7995         22nd May 2010
7996       </div>
7997       <div class="body">
7998         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
7999 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
8000 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
8001 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
8002
8003 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
8004 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
8005 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
8006 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
8007 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
8008 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
8009 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
8010 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
8011 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
8012 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
8013 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
8014 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
8015 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
8016 going to work.</p>
8017
8018 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
8019 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
8020 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
8021 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
8022 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
8023 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
8024 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
8025 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
8026 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
8027 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
8028 Edu.</p>
8029
8030 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
8031 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
8032 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
8033 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
8034 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
8035 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
8036
8037 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
8038 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
8039
8040       </div>
8041       <div class="tags">
8042
8043
8044         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>.
8045
8046
8047       </div>
8048     </div>
8049     <div class="padding"></div>
8050
8051     <div class="entry">
8052       <div class="title">
8053         <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>
8054       </div>
8055       <div class="date">
8056         14th May 2010
8057       </div>
8058       <div class="body">
8059         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
8060 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
8061 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
8062 expected, if I am to believe the
8063 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8064 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
8065 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
8066 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
8067 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
8068 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
8069 version.</p>
8070
8071 More information about
8072 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8073 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
8074 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
8075 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8076
8077 <blockquote><pre>
8078 CONCURRENCY=none
8079 </pre></blockquote>
8080
8081 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8082 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8083 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8084 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8085
8086       </div>
8087       <div class="tags">
8088
8089
8090         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>.
8091
8092
8093       </div>
8094     </div>
8095     <div class="padding"></div>
8096
8097     <div class="entry">
8098       <div class="title">
8099         <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>
8100       </div>
8101       <div class="date">
8102         14th May 2010
8103       </div>
8104       <div class="body">
8105         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
8106 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
8107 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
8108 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
8109 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
8110 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
8111 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
8112 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
8113
8114 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
8115 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
8116 this on the collector host:</p>
8117
8118 <blockquote><pre>
8119 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
8120 </pre></blockquote>
8121
8122 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
8123 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
8124
8125 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
8126 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
8127 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
8128 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
8129 written yet.</p>
8130
8131       </div>
8132       <div class="tags">
8133
8134
8135         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>.
8136
8137
8138       </div>
8139     </div>
8140     <div class="padding"></div>
8141
8142     <div class="entry">
8143       <div class="title">
8144         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
8145       </div>
8146       <div class="date">
8147         13th May 2010
8148       </div>
8149       <div class="body">
8150         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
8151 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
8152 has been
8153 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
8154
8155 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
8156 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
8157 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
8158 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
8159 based boot system.  Tollef is
8160 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
8161 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
8162 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
8163 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
8164 at the moment do not.</p>
8165
8166 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
8167 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
8168 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
8169 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
8170 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
8171 way forward.</p>
8172
8173 <p>In the mean time, based on the
8174 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8175 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
8176 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
8177 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
8178 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
8179 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
8180 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
8181 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
8182
8183       </div>
8184       <div class="tags">
8185
8186
8187         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>.
8188
8189
8190       </div>
8191     </div>
8192     <div class="padding"></div>
8193
8194     <div class="entry">
8195       <div class="title">
8196         <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>
8197       </div>
8198       <div class="date">
8199          6th May 2010
8200       </div>
8201       <div class="body">
8202         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
8203 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
8204 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
8205 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
8206 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8207 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
8208 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8209
8210 <blockquote><pre>
8211 CONCURRENCY=makefile
8212 </pre></blockquote>
8213
8214 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
8215 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
8216 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
8217 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
8218 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
8219 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
8220 make this happen.</p>
8221
8222 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
8223 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
8224 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
8225 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
8226 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
8227
8228 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
8229 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
8230 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
8231 fix the remaining issues.</p>
8232
8233 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8234 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8235 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8236 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8237
8238       </div>
8239       <div class="tags">
8240
8241
8242         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>.
8243
8244
8245       </div>
8246     </div>
8247     <div class="padding"></div>
8248
8249     <div class="entry">
8250       <div class="title">
8251         <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>
8252       </div>
8253       <div class="date">
8254         27th July 2009
8255       </div>
8256       <div class="body">
8257         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
8258 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
8259 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
8260 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
8261 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
8262 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
8263 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
8264
8265 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
8266 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
8267 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
8268
8269       </div>
8270       <div class="tags">
8271
8272
8273         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>.
8274
8275
8276       </div>
8277     </div>
8278     <div class="padding"></div>
8279
8280     <div class="entry">
8281       <div class="title">
8282         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
8283       </div>
8284       <div class="date">
8285         22nd July 2009
8286       </div>
8287       <div class="body">
8288         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
8289 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
8290 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
8291 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
8292 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
8293 the package up to date.</p>
8294
8295 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
8296 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
8297 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
8298 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
8299 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
8300 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
8301 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
8302 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
8303 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
8304 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
8305 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
8306 working on the future release.</p>
8307
8308 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
8309 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
8310
8311       </div>
8312       <div class="tags">
8313
8314
8315         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>.
8316
8317
8318       </div>
8319     </div>
8320     <div class="padding"></div>
8321
8322     <div class="entry">
8323       <div class="title">
8324         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
8325       </div>
8326       <div class="date">
8327         24th June 2009
8328       </div>
8329       <div class="body">
8330         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
8331 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
8332 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
8333 funded
8334 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
8335 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
8336 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
8337 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
8338 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
8339 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
8340
8341 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
8342 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
8343 boot:</p>
8344
8345 <ul>
8346
8347 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
8348
8349 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
8350    clock is in UTC.</li>
8351
8352 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
8353    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8354    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
8355
8356 </ul>
8357
8358 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
8359 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
8360 Villegas</a>.
8361
8362 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
8363 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
8364 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
8365 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
8366 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
8367 using this.</p>
8368
8369 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
8370 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
8371 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
8372 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
8373 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
8374 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
8375 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
8376
8377       </div>
8378       <div class="tags">
8379
8380
8381         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>.
8382
8383
8384       </div>
8385     </div>
8386     <div class="padding"></div>
8387
8388     <div class="entry">
8389       <div class="title">
8390         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
8391       </div>
8392       <div class="date">
8393         17th May 2009
8394       </div>
8395       <div class="body">
8396         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
8397 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
8398 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
8399 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
8400 dager siden kom
8401 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
8402 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
8403 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
8404 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
8405 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
8406
8407 <blockquote>
8408 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
8409 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
8410 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
8411 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
8412 </blockquote>
8413
8414 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
8415 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
8416 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
8417 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
8418 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
8419
8420 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
8421 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
8422 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
8423
8424       </div>
8425       <div class="tags">
8426
8427
8428         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>.
8429
8430
8431       </div>
8432     </div>
8433     <div class="padding"></div>
8434
8435     <div class="entry">
8436       <div class="title">
8437         <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>
8438       </div>
8439       <div class="date">
8440          7th May 2009
8441       </div>
8442       <div class="body">
8443         <p>Kom over
8444 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
8445 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
8446 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
8447 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
8448 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
8449 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
8450 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
8451
8452       </div>
8453       <div class="tags">
8454
8455
8456         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>.
8457
8458
8459       </div>
8460     </div>
8461     <div class="padding"></div>
8462
8463     <div class="entry">
8464       <div class="title">
8465         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
8466       </div>
8467       <div class="date">
8468          2nd May 2009
8469       </div>
8470       <div class="body">
8471         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
8472 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
8473 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
8474 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
8475 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
8476 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
8477 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
8478 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
8479 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
8480 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
8481 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
8482 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
8483 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
8484 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
8485 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
8486 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
8487 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
8488 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
8489 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
8490 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
8491
8492 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
8493 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
8494 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
8495 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
8496 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
8497 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
8498 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
8499 betydelige.</p>
8500
8501       </div>
8502       <div class="tags">
8503
8504
8505         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>.
8506
8507
8508       </div>
8509     </div>
8510     <div class="padding"></div>
8511
8512     <div class="entry">
8513       <div class="title">
8514         <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>
8515       </div>
8516       <div class="date">
8517          2nd May 2009
8518       </div>
8519       <div class="body">
8520         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
8521 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
8522 do not yet know them.</p>
8523
8524 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
8525 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
8526 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
8527 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
8528 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
8529 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
8530 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
8531 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
8532 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
8533 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
8534 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
8535
8536 <p>The second one is
8537 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
8538 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
8539 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
8540 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
8541 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
8542 and the company behind it is running
8543 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
8544 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
8545 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
8546 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
8547 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
8548 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
8549 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
8550 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
8551
8552 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
8553 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
8554 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
8555 surrounded by today.</p>
8556
8557       </div>
8558       <div class="tags">
8559
8560
8561         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>.
8562
8563
8564       </div>
8565     </div>
8566     <div class="padding"></div>
8567
8568     <div class="entry">
8569       <div class="title">
8570         <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>
8571       </div>
8572       <div class="date">
8573         28th April 2009
8574       </div>
8575       <div class="body">
8576         <p>Julien Blache
8577 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
8578 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
8579 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
8580 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
8581 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
8582 properties.</p>
8583
8584       </div>
8585       <div class="tags">
8586
8587
8588         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>.
8589
8590
8591       </div>
8592     </div>
8593     <div class="padding"></div>
8594
8595     <div class="entry">
8596       <div class="title">
8597         <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>
8598       </div>
8599       <div class="date">
8600         30th March 2009
8601       </div>
8602       <div class="body">
8603         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
8604 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
8605 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
8606 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
8607 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
8608 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
8609 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
8610 application.</p>
8611
8612 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
8613 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
8614 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
8615 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
8616 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
8617 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
8618 blocked from doing so.</p>
8619
8620 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
8621 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
8622 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
8623 requirements change.</p>
8624
8625 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
8626 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
8627 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
8628
8629       </div>
8630       <div class="tags">
8631
8632
8633         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>.
8634
8635
8636       </div>
8637     </div>
8638     <div class="padding"></div>
8639
8640     <div class="entry">
8641       <div class="title">
8642         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
8643       </div>
8644       <div class="date">
8645         29th March 2009
8646       </div>
8647       <div class="body">
8648         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
8649 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
8650 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
8651 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
8652 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
8653 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
8654 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
8655 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
8656 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
8657 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
8658 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
8659 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
8660 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
8661 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
8662 now. :)</p>
8663
8664       </div>
8665       <div class="tags">
8666
8667
8668         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>.
8669
8670
8671       </div>
8672     </div>
8673     <div class="padding"></div>
8674
8675     <div class="entry">
8676       <div class="title">
8677         <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>
8678       </div>
8679       <div class="date">
8680         29th March 2009
8681       </div>
8682       <div class="body">
8683         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
8684 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
8685 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
8686 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
8687 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
8688 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
8689
8690 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
8691 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
8692 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
8693 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
8694 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
8695 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
8696 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
8697 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
8698 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
8699 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
8700 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
8701 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
8702 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
8703
8704 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
8705 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
8706 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
8707 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
8708
8709 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
8710 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
8711
8712 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
8713 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
8714 new IETF work group?</p>
8715
8716       </div>
8717       <div class="tags">
8718
8719
8720         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>.
8721
8722
8723       </div>
8724     </div>
8725     <div class="padding"></div>
8726
8727     <div class="entry">
8728       <div class="title">
8729         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
8730       </div>
8731       <div class="date">
8732         15th February 2009
8733       </div>
8734       <div class="body">
8735         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
8736 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
8737 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
8738 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
8739 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
8740 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
8741 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
8742 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
8743 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
8744 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
8745 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
8746 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
8747
8748       </div>
8749       <div class="tags">
8750
8751
8752         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>.
8753
8754
8755       </div>
8756     </div>
8757     <div class="padding"></div>
8758
8759     <div class="entry">
8760       <div class="title">
8761         <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>
8762       </div>
8763       <div class="date">
8764          7th December 2008
8765       </div>
8766       <div class="body">
8767         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
8768 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
8769 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
8770 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
8771 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
8772 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
8773 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
8774 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
8775
8776 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
8777 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
8778 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
8779 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
8780 of these cards.</p>
8781
8782       </div>
8783       <div class="tags">
8784
8785
8786         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>.
8787
8788
8789       </div>
8790     </div>
8791     <div class="padding"></div>
8792
8793     <div class="entry">
8794       <div class="title">
8795         <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>
8796       </div>
8797       <div class="date">
8798         25th November 2008
8799       </div>
8800       <div class="body">
8801         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
8802 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
8803 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
8804 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
8805 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
8806 notes are available on
8807 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
8808 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
8809 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
8810 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
8811 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
8812 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
8813 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
8814 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
8815 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
8816
8817 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
8818 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
8819
8820       </div>
8821       <div class="tags">
8822
8823
8824         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>.
8825
8826
8827       </div>
8828     </div>
8829     <div class="padding"></div>
8830
8831     <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>
8832     <div id="sidebar">
8833
8834
8835
8836 <h2>Archive</h2>
8837 <ul>
8838
8839 <li>2014
8840 <ul>
8841
8842 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
8843
8844 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
8845
8846 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
8847
8848 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
8849
8850 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
8851
8852 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
8853
8854 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
8855
8856 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
8857
8858 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
8859
8860 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (5)</a></li>
8861
8862 </ul></li>
8863
8864 <li>2013
8865 <ul>
8866
8867 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
8868
8869 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
8870
8871 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
8872
8873 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
8874
8875 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
8876
8877 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
8878
8879 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
8880
8881 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
8882
8883 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
8884
8885 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
8886
8887 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
8888
8889 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
8890
8891 </ul></li>
8892
8893 <li>2012
8894 <ul>
8895
8896 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
8897
8898 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
8899
8900 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
8901
8902 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
8903
8904 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
8905
8906 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
8907
8908 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
8909
8910 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
8911
8912 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
8913
8914 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
8915
8916 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
8917
8918 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
8919
8920 </ul></li>
8921
8922 <li>2011
8923 <ul>
8924
8925 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
8926
8927 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
8928
8929 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
8930
8931 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
8932
8933 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
8934
8935 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
8936
8937 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
8938
8939 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
8940
8941 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
8942
8943 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
8944
8945 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
8946
8947 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
8948
8949 </ul></li>
8950
8951 <li>2010
8952 <ul>
8953
8954 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
8955
8956 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
8957
8958 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
8959
8960 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
8961
8962 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
8963
8964 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
8965
8966 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
8967
8968 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
8969
8970 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
8971
8972 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
8973
8974 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
8975
8976 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
8977
8978 </ul></li>
8979
8980 <li>2009
8981 <ul>
8982
8983 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
8984
8985 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
8986
8987 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
8988
8989 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
8990
8991 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
8992
8993 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
8994
8995 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
8996
8997 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
8998
8999 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
9000
9001 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9002
9003 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9004
9005 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9006
9007 </ul></li>
9008
9009 <li>2008
9010 <ul>
9011
9012 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
9013
9014 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9015
9016 </ul></li>
9017
9018 </ul>
9019
9020
9021
9022 <h2>Tags</h2>
9023 <ul>
9024
9025  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
9026
9027  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
9028
9029  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
9030
9031  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
9032
9033  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
9034
9035  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (14)</a></li>
9036
9037  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
9038
9039  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
9040
9041  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (107)</a></li>
9042
9043  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (150)</a></li>
9044
9045  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
9046
9047  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
9048
9049  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (12)</a></li>
9050
9051  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
9052
9053  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (260)</a></li>
9054
9055  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
9056
9057  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
9058
9059  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (13)</a></li>
9060
9061  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (8)</a></li>
9062
9063  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
9064
9065  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (41)</a></li>
9066
9067  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (10)</a></li>
9068
9069  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
9070
9071  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
9072
9073  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
9074
9075  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
9076
9077  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
9078
9079  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
9080
9081  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (31)</a></li>
9082
9083  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (248)</a></li>
9084
9085  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (163)</a></li>
9086
9087  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (11)</a></li>
9088
9089  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
9090
9091  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (48)</a></li>
9092
9093  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (75)</a></li>
9094
9095  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
9096
9097  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
9098
9099  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
9100
9101  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
9102
9103  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
9104
9105  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
9106
9107  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
9108
9109  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
9110
9111  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (41)</a></li>
9112
9113  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
9114
9115  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
9116
9117  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (45)</a></li>
9118
9119  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
9120
9121  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
9122
9123  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (26)</a></li>
9124
9125  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
9126
9127  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
9128
9129  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (44)</a></li>
9130
9131  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
9132
9133  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (33)</a></li>
9134
9135 </ul>
9136
9137
9138     </div>
9139     <p style="text-align: right">
9140  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
9141 </p>
9142
9143   </body>
9144 </html>