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