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   5   <title>Petter Reinholdtsen</title>
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  12  <div class="title">
  13   <h1>
  14        <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16   </h1>
  17
  18  </div>
  19
  20
  21
  22  <div class="entry">
  23   <div class="title"><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></div>
  24   <div class="date">2010-06-16 14:55</div>
  25   <div class="body">
  26 <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
  27 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
  28 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
  29 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
  30 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
  31 this:
  32
  33 <blockquote><pre>
  34 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
  35 tasksel --new-install
  36 </pre></blockquote>
  37
  38 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
  39 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
  40 any output what so ever.
  41
  42 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
  43 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
  44 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
  45 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
  46 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
  47 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
  48 code like this:
  49
  50 <blockquote><pre>
  51 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
  52 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
  53 $cmd
  54 </pre></blockquote>
  55
  56 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
  57 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
  58 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
  59 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
  60 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
  61 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
  62 installation.</p>
  63
  64 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
  65 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
  66 like this.</p>
  67 </div>
  68   <div class="tags">
  69
  70
  71
  72    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>.
  73
  74   </div>
  75  </div>
  76  <div class="padding"></div>
  77
  78  <div class="entry">
  79   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Vinmonopolet_bryter_loven___penlyst___og_flere_planlegger____gj__re_det_samme.html">Vinmonopolet bryter loven åpenlyst - og flere planlegger å gjøre det samme</a></div>
  80   <div class="date">2010-06-16 11:00</div>
  81   <div class="body">
  82 <p><a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/06/16/nyheter/innenriks/streik/arbeidsliv/12157858/">Dagbladet
  83 melder</a> at Vinmonopolet med bakgrunn i vekterstreiken som pågår i
  84 Norge for tiden, har bestemt seg for med vitende og vilje å bryte
  85 sentralbanklovens paragraf 14 ved å nekte folk å betale med
  86 kontanter, og at flere butikker planlegger å følge deres eksempel.
  87 Jeg synes det er hårreisende hvis de slipper unna med et slikt
  88 soleklart lovbrudd, og lurer på hva slags muligheter jeg vil ha hvis
  89 jeg blir nektet å handle med kontanter.  Jeg handler i hovedsak med
  90 kontanter selv, da jeg anser det som en borgerrett å kunne handle
  91 anonymt uten at det blir registrert.  For meg er det et angrep på mitt
  92 personvern å nekte å ta imot kontant betaling.</p>
  93
  94 <p><a href="http://www.lovdata.no/all/tl-19850524-028-003.html#14">Paragrafen
  95 i sentralbankloven</a> lyder:</p>
  96
  97 <blockquote>
  98 <p>§ 14. Tvungent betalingsmiddel</p>
  99
 100 <p>Bankens sedler og mynter er tvungent betalingsmiddel i Norge. Ingen
 101 er pliktig til i én betaling å ta imot mer enn femogtyve mynter av
 102 hver enhet.</p>
 103
 104 <p>Sterkt skadde sedler og mynter er ikke tvungent
 105 betalingsmiddel. Banken gir nærmere forskrifter om erstatning for
 106 bortkomne, brente eller skadde sedler og mynter.</p>
 107
 108 <p>Selv om en avtale inneholder klausul om betaling av en
 109 pengeforpliktelse i gullverdi, kan skyldneren frigjøre seg med tvungne
 110 betalingsmidler uten hensyn til denne klausul.</p>
 111 </blockquote>
 112
 113 <p>Det er med bakgrunn i denne lovet ikke tillatt å nekte å ta imot
 114 kontakt betaling.  Det er en lov jeg har sans for, og som jeg mener må
 115 håndheves strengt.</p>
 116 </div>
 117   <div class="tags">
 118
 119
 120
 121    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
 122
 123   </div>
 124  </div>
 125  <div class="padding"></div>
 126
 127  <div class="entry">
 128   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a></div>
 129   <div class="date">2010-06-13 11:40</div>
 130   <div class="body">
 131 <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
 132 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
 133 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
 134 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
 135 pages.</p>
 136
 137 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
 138 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
 139 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
 140 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
 141 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
 142 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
 143 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
 144 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
 145 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
 146 see how the project is doing.</p>
 147
 148 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
 149 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
 150 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
 151 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
 152 Windows.  This is great.</p>
 153 </div>
 154   <div class="tags">
 155
 156
 157
 158    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
 159
 160   </div>
 161  </div>
 162  <div class="padding"></div>
 163
 164  <div class="entry">
 165   <div class="title"><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></div>
 166   <div class="date">2010-06-13 09:05</div>
 167   <div class="body">
 168 <p>My
 169 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
 170 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
 171 finally made the upgrade logs available from
 172 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
 173 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
 174 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
 175 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
 176
 177 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
 178 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
 179 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
 180 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
 181 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
 182 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
 183 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
 184 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
 185
 186 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
 187 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
 188 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
 189 too surprising.</p>
 190
 191 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
 192 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
 193 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
 194 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
 195 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
 196 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
 197 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
 198 continue.</p>
 199
 200 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
 201 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
 202   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
 203   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
 204   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
 205   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
 206   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
 207   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
 208   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
 209   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
 210   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
 211   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
 212   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
 213   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
 214   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
 215   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
 216   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
 217   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
 218   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
 219   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
 220   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
 221   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
 222   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
 223   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
 224   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
 225   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
 226   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
 227   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
 228   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
 229   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
 230
 231 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
 232
 233 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
 234   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
 235   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
 236   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
 237   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
 238   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
 239   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
 240   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
 241   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
 242   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
 243   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
 244   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
 245   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
 246   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
 247   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
 248   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
 249   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
 250   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
 251   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
 252   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
 253   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
 254   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
 255   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
 256   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
 257   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
 258   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
 259   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
 260   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
 261   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
 262   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
 263   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
 264   zip</p>
 265
 266 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
 267
 268 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
 269   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
 270   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
 271   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
 272   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
 273   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
 274   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
 275   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
 276   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
 277   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
 278   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
 279   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
 280   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
 281   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
 282   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
 283   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
 284   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
 285   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
 286   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
 287   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
 288   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
 289   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
 290   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
 291   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
 292   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
 293   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
 294   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
 295   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
 296
 297 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
 298 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
 299   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
 300   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
 301   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
 302   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
 303   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
 304   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
 305   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
 306   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
 307   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
 308   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
 309   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
 310   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
 311   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
 312   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
 313   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
 314   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
 315   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
 316   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
 317   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
 318   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
 319   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
 320   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
 321   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
 322   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
 323   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
 324   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
 325   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
 326   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
 327   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
 328   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
 329   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
 330   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
 331   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
 332   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
 333   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
 334   xulrunner-1.9</p>
 335
 336 </div>
 337   <div class="tags">
 338
 339
 340
 341    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>.
 342
 343   </div>
 344  </div>
 345  <div class="padding"></div>
 346
 347  <div class="entry">
 348   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/__pne_tr__dl__snett_er_et_samfunnsgode.html">Åpne trådløsnett er et samfunnsgode</a></div>
 349   <div class="date">2010-06-12 12:45</div>
 350   <div class="body">
 351 <p>Veldig glad for å oppdage via
 352 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/06/11/1841256/Finland-To-Legalize-Use-of-Unsecured-Wi-Fi">Slashdot</a>
 353 at folk i Finland har forstått at åpne trådløsnett er et samfunnsgode.
 354 Jeg ser på åpne trådløsnett som et fellesgode på linje med retten til
 355 ferdsel i utmark og retten til å bevege seg i strandsonen.  Jeg har
 356 glede av åpne trådløsnett når jeg finner dem, og deler gladelig nett
 357 med andre så lenge de ikke forstyrrer min bruk av eget nett.
 358 Nettkapasiteten er sjelden en begrensning ved normal browsing og enkel
 359 SSH-innlogging (som er min vanligste nettbruk), og nett kan brukes til
 360 så mye positivt og nyttig (som nyhetslesing, sjekke været, kontakte
 361 slekt og venner, holde seg oppdatert om politiske saker, kontakte
 362 organisasjoner og politikere, etc), at det for meg er helt urimelig å
 363 blokkere dette for alle som ikke gjør en flue fortred.  De som mener
 364 at potensialet for misbruk er grunn nok til å hindre all den positive
 365 og lovlydige bruken av et åpent trådløsnett har jeg dermed ingen
 366 forståelse for.  En kan ikke eksistensen av forbrytere styre hvordan
 367 samfunnet skal organiseres.  Da får en et kontrollsamfunn de færreste
 368 ønsker å leve i, og det at vi har et samfunn i Norge der tilliten til
 369 hverandre er høy gjør at samfunnet fungerer ganske godt.  Det bør vi
 370 anstrenge oss for å beholde.</p>
 371 </div>
 372   <div class="tags">
 373
 374
 375
 376    Tags: <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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
 377
 378   </div>
 379  </div>
 380  <div class="padding"></div>
 381
 382  <div class="entry">
 383   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a></div>
 384   <div class="date">2010-06-11 22:50</div>
 385   <div class="body">
 386 <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
 387 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
 388 have been discovered and reported in the process
 389 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
 390 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
 391 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
 392 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
 393 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
 394
 395 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
 396 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
 397 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
 398 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
 399 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
 400 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
 401
 402 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
 403 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
 404 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
 405 is created.  The bug report
 406 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
 407 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
 408 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
 409 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
 410 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
 411 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
 412 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
 413 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
 414 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
 415 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
 416 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
 417 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
 418 Debian Squeeze.</p>
 419
 420 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
 421 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
 422 trick:</p>
 423
 424 <blockquote><pre>
 425 #!/bin/sh
 426 set -ex
 427
 428 if [ "$1" ] ; then
 429     desktop=$1
 430 else
 431     desktop=gnome
 432 fi
 433
 434 from=lenny
 435 to=squeeze
 436
 437 exec &lt; /dev/null
 438 unset LANG
 439 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
 440 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
 441 fuser -mv .
 442 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
 443 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
 444 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
 445 #!/bin/sh
 446 exit 101
 447 EOF
 448 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
 449 exit_cleanup() {
 450     umount $tmpdir/proc
 451 }
 452 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
 453 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
 454 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
 455
 456 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
 457
 458 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
 459 # to return the correct answers.
 460 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
 461     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
 462
 463 # Include the desktop and laptop task
 464 for test in desktop laptop ; do
 465     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
 466 #!/bin/sh
 467 exit 2
 468 EOF
 469     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
 470 done
 471
 472 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
 473 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
 474 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
 475 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
 476
 477 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
 478 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
 479 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
 480 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
 481 fuser -mv
 482 </pre></blockquote>
 483
 484 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
 485 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
 486 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
 487 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
 488 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
 489 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
 490
 491 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
 492 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
 493 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
 494 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
 495 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
 496 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
 497 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
 498
 499 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
 500 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
 501 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
 502 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
 503 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
 504 packages.</p>
 505 </div>
 506   <div class="tags">
 507
 508
 509
 510    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>.
 511
 512   </div>
 513  </div>
 514  <div class="padding"></div>
 515
 516  <div class="entry">
 517   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_er_laget_for_sentraldrifting__naturligvis.html">Skolelinux er laget for sentraldrifting, naturligvis</a></div>
 518   <div class="date">2010-06-09 12:30</div>
 519   <div class="body">
 520 <p>Det er merkelig hvordan myter om Skolelinux overlever.  En slik
 521 myte er at Skolelinux ikke kan sentraldriftes og ha sentralt plasserte
 522 tjenermaskiner.  I siste Computerworld Norge er
 523 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article169432.ece">IT-sjef
 524 Viggo Billdal i Steinkjer intervjuet</a>, og forteller uten
 525 blygsel:</p>
 526
 527 <blockquote><p>Vi hadde Skolelinux, men det har vi sluttet med. Vi testet
 528 om det lønte seg med Microsoft eller en åpen plattform. Vi fant ut at
 529 Microsoft egentlig var totalt sett bedre egnet. Det var store
 530 driftskostnader med Skolelinux, blant annet på grunn av
 531 desentraliserte servere. Det var komplisert, så vi gikk vekk fra det
 532 og bruker nå bare Windows.</p></blockquote>
 533
 534 <p>En <a
 535 href="https://init.linpro.no/pipermail/skolelinux.no/bruker/2010-June/009101.html">rask
 536 sjekk</a> mot den norske brukerlista i Skolelinuxprosjektet forteller
 537 at Steinkjers forsøk foregikk fram til 2004/2005, og at Røysing skole
 538 i Steinkjer skal ha vært svært fornøyd med Skolelinux men at kommunen
 539 overkjørte skolen og krevde at de gikk over til Windows.  Et søk på
 540 nettet sendte meg til
 541 <a href="http://www.dn.no/multimedia/archive/00090/Dagens_it_nr__18_90826a.pdf">Dagens
 542 IT nr. 18 2005</a> hvor en kan lese på side 18:</p>
 543
 544 <blockquote><p>Inge Tømmerås ved Røysing skole i Steinkjer kjører ennå
 545 Microsoft, men forteller at kompetanseutfordringen med Skolelinux ikke
 546 var så stor.   Jeg syntes Skolelinux var utrolig lett å drifte uten
 547 forkunnskaper. Men man må jo selvsagt ha tilgang på ekstern kompetanse
 548 til installasjoner og maskinvarefeil, sier Tømmerås.</p></blockquote>
 549
 550 <p>Som systemarkitekten bak Skolelinux, kan jeg bare riste på hodet
 551 over påstanden om at Skolelinux krever desentraliserte tjenere.
 552 Skolelinux-arkitekturen er laget for sentralisert drift og plassering
 553 av tjenerne lokalt eller sentralt alt etter behov og nettkapasitet.
 554 Den er modellert på nettverks- og tjenerløsningen som brukes på
 555 Universitetet i Tromsø og Oslo, der jeg jobber med utvikling av
 556 driftstjenester.  Dette er det heldigvis noen som har fått med seg, og
 557 jeg er glad for å kunne sitere fra en kommentar på den overnevnte
 558 artikkelen.  Min venn og gamle kollega Sturle Sunde forteller der:
 559
 560 <blockquote>
 561 <p>I Flora kommune køyrer vi Skulelinux på skular med alt frå 15 til
 562 meir enn 500 elevar. Dei store skulane har eigen tenar, for det er
 563 mest praktisk. Eg, som er driftsansvarleg for heile nettet, ser
 564 sjeldan dei tenarane fysisk, men at dei står der gjer skulane mindre
 565 avhengige av eksterne linjer som er trege eller dyre. Dei minste
 566 skulane har ikkje eigen tenar. Å bruke sentral tenar er heller ikkje
 567 noko problem. Småskulane klarar seg fint med 1 mbit-linje til ein
 568 sentral tenar eller tenaren på ein større skule.</p>
 569
 570 <p>Det beste med Skulelinux er halvtjukke klientar. Dei treng ikkje
 571 harddisk og brukar minimalt med ressursar på tenaren fordi dei køyrer
 572 programma lokalt. Eit klasserom med 30 sju-åtte år gamle maskiner har
 573 mykje meir CPU og RAM totalt enn nokon moderne tenar til under
 574 millionen. Det trengst to kommandoar på den sentrale tenaren for å
 575 oppdatere alle klientane, både tynne og halvtjukke. Vi har ingen
 576 problem med diskar som ryk heller, som var eit problem før fordi
 577 elevane sat og sparka i maskinene. Og dei krev lite bandbreidde i
 578 nettet, so det er fullt mogleg å køyre slike på småskular med trege
 579 linjer mot tenaren på ein større skule.</p>
 580
 581 <p>Flora kommune har nesten 800 Linux-maskiner i sitt skulenett, og
 582 ein person som tek seg av drift av heile nettet, inkludert tenarar,
 583 klientar, operativsystem, programvare, heimekontorløysing og
 584 administrasjon av brukarar.</p>
 585
 586 <p>No skal det seiast at vi ikkje køyrer rein Skulelinux ut av
 587 boksen. Vi har gjort ein del tilpassingar mot noko Novell-greier som
 588 var der frå før, og som har komplisert installasjonen vår. Etter at
 589 oppsettet var gjort har løysinga vore stabil og kravd minimalt med
 590 arbeid.</p>
 591 </blockquote>
 592
 593 <p>Jeg vet at Narvik, Harstad og Oslo er kommuner der Skolelinux
 594 sentraldriftes med sentrale tjenere.  Det forteller meg at Steinkjers
 595 IT-sjef neppe bør skylde på Skolelinux-løsningen for sine 5 år gamle
 596 minner.</p>
 597 </div>
 598   <div class="tags">
 599
 600
 601
 602    Tags: <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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 603
 604   </div>
 605  </div>
 606  <div class="padding"></div>
 607
 608  <div class="entry">
 609   <div class="title"><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></div>
 610   <div class="date">2010-06-06 23:55</div>
 611   <div class="body">
 612 <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
 613 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
 614 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
 615 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
 616 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
 617 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
 618 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
 619
 620 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
 621 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
 622 COLUMNS):</p>
 623
 624 <blockquote><pre>
 625 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
 626 previous=N
 627 PREVLEVEL=
 628 RUNLEVEL=
 629 runlevel=S
 630 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
 631 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
 632 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
 633 </pre></blockquote>
 634
 635 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
 636 script.</p>
 637
 638 <blockquote><pre>
 639 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
 640 previous=N
 641 PREVLEVEL=N
 642 RUNLEVEL=S
 643 runlevel=S
 644 </pre></blockquote>
 645
 646 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
 647 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
 648 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
 649
 650 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
 651 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
 652 choice.</p>
 653 </div>
 654   <div class="tags">
 655
 656
 657
 658    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>.
 659
 660   </div>
 661  </div>
 662  <div class="padding"></div>
 663
 664  <div class="entry">
 665   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a></div>
 666   <div class="date">2010-06-06 14:15</div>
 667   <div class="body">
 668 <p>Via the
 669 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
 670 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
 671 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
 672 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
 673 following the standards wars of today.</p>
 674 </div>
 675   <div class="tags">
 676
 677
 678
 679    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>.
 680
 681   </div>
 682  </div>
 683  <div class="padding"></div>
 684
 685  <div class="entry">
 686   <div class="title"><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></div>
 687   <div class="date">2010-06-03 12:05</div>
 688   <div class="body">
 689 <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
 690 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
 691 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
 692 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
 693 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
 694
 695 <blockquote><pre>
 696 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
 697   vendor                    count
 698   Dell Computer Corporation     1
 699     PowerEdge 1750              1
 700   IBM                           1
 701     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
 702   Intel                         2
 703   [no-dmi-info]                 3
 704 maintainer:~#
 705 </pre></blockquote>
 706
 707 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
 708 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
 709 information listed with Intel as vendor and mo model, and virtual Xen
 710 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
 711 option to list the individual machines.</p>
 712
 713 <p>A larger list is
 714 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
 715 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
 716 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
 717 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
 718 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
 719 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
 720 collector.</p>
 721 </div>
 722   <div class="tags">
 723
 724
 725
 726    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>.
 727
 728   </div>
 729  </div>
 730  <div class="padding"></div>
 731
 732  <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="index.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS feed" width="36" height="14"></a></p>
 733
 734 <div id="sidebar">
 735
 736
 737
 738
 739
 740 <h2>Archive</h2>
 741 <ul>
 742
 743 <li>2010
 744 <ul>
 745
 746 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 747
 748 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
 749
 750 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
 751
 752 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
 753
 754 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 755
 756 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (12)</a></li>
 757
 758 </ul></li>
 759
 760 <li>2009
 761 <ul>
 762
 763 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
 764
 765 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
 766
 767 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
 768
 769 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
 770
 771 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 772
 773 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
 774
 775 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
 776
 777 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 778
 779 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
 780
 781 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 782
 783 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 784
 785 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 786
 787 </ul></li>
 788
 789 <li>2008
 790 <ul>
 791
 792 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
 793
 794 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 795
 796 </ul></li>
 797
 798 </ul>
 799
 800
 801
 802 <h2>Tags</h2>
 803 <ul>
 804
 805  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (11)</a></li>
 806
 807  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
 808
 809  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
 810
 811  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (10)</a></li>
 812
 813  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (27)</a></li>
 814
 815  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (26)</a></li>
 816
 817  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (39)</a></li>
 818
 819  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (1)</a></li>
 820
 821  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (7)</a></li>
 822
 823  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (2)</a></li>
 824
 825  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (1)</a></li>
 826
 827  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
 828
 829  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (5)</a></li>
 830
 831  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (69)</a></li>
 832
 833  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (77)</a></li>
 834
 835  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (13)</a></li>
 836
 837  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (13)</a></li>
 838
 839  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (10)</a></li>
 840
 841  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
 842
 843  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (9)</a></li>
 844
 845  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (3)</a></li>
 846
 847  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (13)</a></li>
 848
 849  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (1)</a></li>
 850
 851  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (10)</a></li>
 852
 853  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (1)</a></li>
 854
 855  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (6)</a></li>
 856
 857 </ul>
 858
 859 </div>
 860
 861 <p style="text-align: right">
 862 Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v3.7</a>
 863 </p>
 864 </body>
 865 </html>