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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/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         20th December 2015
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>Around three years ago, I created
  32 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
  33 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
  34 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
  35 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
  36 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
  37 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
  38 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
  39 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
  40 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
  41 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
  42 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
  43 with.</p>
  44
  45 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
  46 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
  47 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
  48 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
  49 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
  50 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
  51 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
  52 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
  53 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
  54 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
  55 Debian version of appstream.</p>
  56
  57 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
  58 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
  59 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
  60 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
  61 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
  62 how do add the required
  63 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
  64 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
  65 this content:</p>
  66
  67 <blockquote><pre>
  68 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
  69 &lt;component&gt;
  70   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
  71   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
  72   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
  73   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
  74   &lt;description&gt;
  75     &lt;p&gt;
  76       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
  77       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
  78       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
  79       launcher.
  80     &lt;/p&gt;
  81   &lt;/description&gt;
  82   &lt;provides&gt;
  83     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
  84   &lt;/provides&gt;
  85 &lt;/component&gt;
  86 </pre></blockquote>
  87
  88 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
  89 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
  90 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
  91 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
  92 0202.</p>
  93
  94 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
  95 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
  96 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
  97 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
  98 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
  99 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
 100 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
 101 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
 102
 103 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
 104 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
 105 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
 106 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
 107 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
 108
 109 <blockquote><pre>
 110 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
 111 </pre></blockquote>
 112
 113 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
 114 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
 115 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
 116 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
 117 question.</p>
 118
 119 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
 120 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
 121
 122 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
 123 try running this command on the command line:</p>
 124
 125 <blockquote><pre>
 126 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
 127 </pre></blockquote>
 128
 129 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
 130 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
 131 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
 132
 133       </div>
 134       <div class="tags">
 135
 136
 137         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>.
 138
 139
 140       </div>
 141     </div>
 142     <div class="padding"></div>
 143
 144     <div class="entry">
 145       <div class="title">
 146         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust</a>
 147       </div>
 148       <div class="date">
 149         30th November 2015
 150       </div>
 151       <div class="body">
 152         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
 153 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
 154 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
 155 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
 156 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
 157
 158 <blockquote>
 159
 160 <p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!" align="right" border="0" /></a></p>
 161
 162 <blockquote>
 163 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
 164
 165 The first step is to choose a
 166 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
 167 code.<br/>
 168
 169 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
 170 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
 171
 172 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
 173 work<br/>
 174
 175 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
 176 </blockquote>
 177
 178 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
 179 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
 180 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
 181 0x57</a></small></p>
 182
 183 <p>As the Debian Website
 184 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
 185 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
 186 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
 187 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
 188 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
 189 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
 190 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
 191 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
 192 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
 193 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
 194 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
 195 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
 196 Freedom">FaiF</a>
 197 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
 198 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
 199 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
 200 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
 201 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
 202 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
 203 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
 204 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
 205 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
 206 In March the SFC supported a
 207 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
 208 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
 209 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
 210 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
 211 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
 212 conferences
 213 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
 214 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
 215 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
 216 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
 217 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
 218 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
 219 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
 220 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
 221 Software.</p>
 222
 223 <p>If you support Free Software,
 224 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
 225 what the SFC do, agree with their
 226 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
 227 principles</a>, are happy about their
 228 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
 229 work on a project that is an SFC
 230 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
 231 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
 232 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
 233 Allan Webber</a>,
 234 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
 235 Smith</a>,
 236 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
 237 Bacon</a>, myself and
 238 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
 239 becoming a
 240 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
 241 next week your donation will be
 242 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
 243 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
 244 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
 245 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
 246 social media accounts.</p>
 247
 248 </blockquote>
 249
 250 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
 251 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
 252 supporter too?</p>
 253
 254       </div>
 255       <div class="tags">
 256
 257
 258         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/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
 259
 260
 261       </div>
 262     </div>
 263     <div class="padding"></div>
 264
 265     <div class="entry">
 266       <div class="title">
 267         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
 268       </div>
 269       <div class="date">
 270         17th November 2015
 271       </div>
 272       <div class="body">
 273         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
 274 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
 275 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
 276 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
 277 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
 278 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
 279 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
 280 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
 281 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
 282 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
 283
 284 <pre>
 285 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
 286       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
 287 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
 288 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
 289 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
 290 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
 291 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
 292 </pre>
 293
 294 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
 295 my old key.</p>
 296
 297 <p>If you signed my old key
 298 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
 299 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
 300 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
 301 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
 302
 303       </div>
 304       <div class="tags">
 305
 306
 307         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>.
 308
 309
 310       </div>
 311     </div>
 312     <div class="padding"></div>
 313
 314     <div class="entry">
 315       <div class="title">
 316         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
 317       </div>
 318       <div class="date">
 319         24th September 2015
 320       </div>
 321       <div class="body">
 322         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
 323 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
 324 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
 325 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
 326 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
 327 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
 328 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
 329
 330 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
 331
 332 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
 333 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
 334 by someone else.  I found
 335 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
 336 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
 337 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
 338 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
 339 from him.  Via
 340 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
 341 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
 342 discovered
 343 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
 344 available in Debian.</p>
 345
 346 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
 347 battery stats ever since. Now my
 348 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
 349 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
 350 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
 351 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
 352
 353 <pre>
 354 #!/bin/sh
 355 # Inspired by
 356 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
 357 # See also
 358 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
 359 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
 360
 361 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
 362     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
 363
 364 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
 365     (
 366         printf "timestamp,"
 367         for f in $files; do
 368             printf "%s," $f
 369         done
 370         echo
 371     ) > "$logfile"
 372 fi
 373
 374 log_battery() {
 375     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
 376     # when several log processes run in parallel.
 377     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
 378         for f in $files; do \
 379             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
 380         done)
 381     echo "$msg"
 382 }
 383
 384 cd /sys/class/power_supply
 385
 386 for bat in BAT*; do
 387     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
 388 done
 389 </pre>
 390
 391 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
 392 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
 393 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
 394 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
 395 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
 396 The code for the Debian package
 397 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
 398 available on github</a>.</p>
 399
 400 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
 401
 402 <pre>
 403 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
 404 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
 405 [...]
 406 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
 407 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
 408 </pre>
 409
 410 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
 411 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
 412 battery.</p>
 413
 414 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
 415 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
 416 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
 417 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
 418 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
 419 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
 420 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
 421 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
 422 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
 423 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
 424 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
 425 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
 426 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
 427 Linux too.</p>
 428
 429 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
 430 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
 431 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
 432 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
 433 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
 434 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
 435 load).</p>
 436
 437 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
 438 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
 439 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
 440 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
 441 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
 442 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
 443 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
 444 those.</p>
 445
 446 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
 447 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
 448 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
 449 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
 450 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
 451 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
 452 specific.</p>
 453
 454       </div>
 455       <div class="tags">
 456
 457
 458         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 459
 460
 461       </div>
 462     </div>
 463     <div class="padding"></div>
 464
 465     <div class="entry">
 466       <div class="title">
 467         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</a>
 468       </div>
 469       <div class="date">
 470          5th July 2015
 471       </div>
 472       <div class="body">
 473         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
 474 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
 475 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
 476 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
 477 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
 478 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
 479 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
 480 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
 481 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
 482 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
 483 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
 484
 485 <p>One tip I got was to use the
 486 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
 487 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
 488 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
 489 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
 490 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
 491 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
 492
 493 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
 494 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
 495 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
 496 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
 497 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
 498 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
 499 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
 500 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
 501 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
 502 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
 503 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
 504 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
 505 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
 506 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
 507 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
 508
 509 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
 510 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
 511 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
 512 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
 513
 514 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
 515 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
 516
 517 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
 518 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
 519 different
 520 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
 521 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
 522
 523       </div>
 524       <div class="tags">
 525
 526
 527         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>.
 528
 529
 530       </div>
 531     </div>
 532     <div class="padding"></div>
 533
 534     <div class="entry">
 535       <div class="title">
 536         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html">Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</a>
 537       </div>
 538       <div class="date">
 539          3rd July 2015
 540       </div>
 541       <div class="body">
 542         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
 543 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
 544 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
 545 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
 546 flickering.</p>
 547
 548 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
 549 still as
 550 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
 551 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
 552 good help from
 553 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
 554 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
 555 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
 556 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
 557 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
 558 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
 559 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
 560 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
 561 deteriorated since X41.</p>
 562
 563 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
 564 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
 565 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
 566 have suggestions.</p>
 567
 568 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
 569 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
 570 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
 571
 572       </div>
 573       <div class="tags">
 574
 575
 576         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>.
 577
 578
 579       </div>
 580     </div>
 581     <div class="padding"></div>
 582
 583     <div class="entry">
 584       <div class="title">
 585         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
 586       </div>
 587       <div class="date">
 588         22nd November 2014
 589       </div>
 590       <div class="body">
 591         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
 592 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
 593 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
 594 courtesy of
 595 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
 596 Schubert</a> and
 597 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
 598 McVittie</a>.
 599
 600 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
 601 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
 602 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
 603 you upgrade:</p>
 604
 605 <p><blockquote><pre>
 606 Package: systemd-sysv
 607 Pin: release o=Debian
 608 Pin-Priority: -1
 609 </pre></blockquote><p>
 610
 611 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
 612 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
 613 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
 614 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
 615 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
 616
 617 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
 618 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
 619 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
 620 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
 621 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
 622 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
 623
 624 <p><blockquote><pre>
 625 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
 626 </pre></blockquote><p>
 627
 628 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
 629
 630 <p><blockquote><pre>
 631 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
 632 </pre></blockquote><p>
 633
 634 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
 635 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
 636
 637 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
 638 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
 639 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
 640 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
 641 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
 642 Jessie is released.</p>
 643
 644 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
 645 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
 646 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
 647 line.</p>
 648
 649       </div>
 650       <div class="tags">
 651
 652
 653         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>.
 654
 655
 656       </div>
 657     </div>
 658     <div class="padding"></div>
 659
 660     <div class="entry">
 661       <div class="title">
 662         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
 663       </div>
 664       <div class="date">
 665         10th November 2014
 666       </div>
 667       <div class="body">
 668         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
 669 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
 670 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
 671
 672 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
 673 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
 674 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
 675 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
 676 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
 677 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
 678 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
 679 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
 680 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
 681 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
 682 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
 683 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
 684 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
 685 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
 686 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
 687
 688 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
 689 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
 690 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
 691 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
 692 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
 693 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
 694 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
 695 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
 696 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
 697 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
 698 were fairly easy, and
 699 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
 700 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
 701 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
 702 useful approach.</p>
 703
 704 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
 705 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
 706 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
 707 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
 708 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
 709 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
 710 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
 711 this:</p>
 712
 713 <p><blockquote><pre>
 714 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
 715   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
 716 </pre></blockquote></p>
 717
 718 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
 719 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
 720
 721 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
 722 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
 723 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
 724 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
 725 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
 726 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
 727 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
 728 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
 729 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
 730 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
 731 system.</p>
 732
 733 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
 734 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
 735 SMTorP. :)</p>
 736
 737       </div>
 738       <div class="tags">
 739
 740
 741         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 742
 743
 744       </div>
 745     </div>
 746     <div class="padding"></div>
 747
 748     <div class="entry">
 749       <div class="title">
 750         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
 751       </div>
 752       <div class="date">
 753         22nd October 2014
 754       </div>
 755       <div class="body">
 756         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
 757 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
 758 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
 759 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
 760 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
 761 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
 762 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
 763 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
 764 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
 765 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
 766 lists I recently took over:</p>
 767
 768 <p><blockquote><pre>
 769 % time listadmin xiph
 770 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 771 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
 772
 773 real    0m1.709s
 774 user    0m0.232s
 775 sys     0m0.012s
 776 %
 777 </pre></blockquote></p>
 778
 779 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
 780 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
 781 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
 782 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
 783 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
 784 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
 785 program.</p>
 786
 787 <p>If you install
 788 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
 789 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
 790 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
 791
 792 <p><blockquote><pre>
 793 username username@example.org
 794 spamlevel 23
 795 default discard
 796 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
 797
 798 password secret
 799 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
 800 mailman-list@lists.example.com
 801
 802 password hidden
 803 other-list@otherserver.example.org
 804 </pre></blockquote></p>
 805
 806 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
 807 learn the details.</p>
 808
 809 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
 810 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
 811 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
 812 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
 813
 814 <p><blockquote><pre>
 815 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
 816 </pre></blockquote></p>
 817
 818 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
 819 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
 820 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
 821 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
 822 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
 823 email.</p>
 824
 825 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
 826 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
 827 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
 828 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
 829 software.</p>
 830
 831 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 832 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 833 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 834
 835 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
 836 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
 837 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
 838 sure why.</p>
 839
 840       </div>
 841       <div class="tags">
 842
 843
 844         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>.
 845
 846
 847       </div>
 848     </div>
 849     <div class="padding"></div>
 850
 851     <div class="entry">
 852       <div class="title">
 853         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
 854       </div>
 855       <div class="date">
 856         17th October 2014
 857       </div>
 858       <div class="body">
 859         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
 860 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
 861 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
 862 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
 863 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
 864 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
 865 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
 866
 867 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
 868 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
 869 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
 870 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
 871 of this story.)</p>
 872
 873 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
 874 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
 875 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
 876 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
 877 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
 878 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
 879 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
 880 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
 881 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
 882 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
 883
 884 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
 885 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
 886 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
 887 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
 888
 889 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
 890 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
 891
 892 <p><blockquote><pre>
 893 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
 894 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
 895 </pre></blockquote></p>
 896
 897 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
 898 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
 899 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
 900 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
 901 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
 902 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
 903 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
 904 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
 905
 906 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
 907 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
 908
 909 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
 910 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
 911 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
 912 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
 913 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
 914
 915 <p><blockquote><pre>
 916 Task: isenkram-packages
 917 Section: hardware
 918 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 919  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 920  proposed.
 921 Test-new-install: show show
 922 Relevance: 8
 923 Packages: for-current-hardware
 924
 925 Task: isenkram-firmware
 926 Section: hardware
 927 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 928  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
 929  packages are proposed.
 930 Test-new-install: mark show
 931 Relevance: 8
 932 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
 933 </pre></blockquote></p>
 934
 935 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
 936 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
 937 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
 938 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
 939 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
 940
 941 <p><blockquote><pre>
 942 #!/bin/sh
 943 #
 944 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
 945 export PATH
 946 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 947 </pre></blockquote></p>
 948
 949 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
 950 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
 951
 952 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
 953 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
 954 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
 955 install.</p>
 956
 957 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
 958 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
 959 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
 960
 961       </div>
 962       <div class="tags">
 963
 964
 965         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
 966
 967
 968       </div>
 969     </div>
 970     <div class="padding"></div>
 971
 972     <div class="entry">
 973       <div class="title">
 974         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
 975       </div>
 976       <div class="date">
 977          4th October 2014
 978       </div>
 979       <div class="body">
 980         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
 981 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
 982 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
 983 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
 984
 985 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
 986
 987 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
 988 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
 989 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
 990
 991       </div>
 992       <div class="tags">
 993
 994
 995         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>.
 996
 997
 998       </div>
 999     </div>
1000     <div class="padding"></div>
1001
1002     <div class="entry">
1003       <div class="title">
1004         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
1005       </div>
1006       <div class="date">
1007          4th October 2014
1008       </div>
1009       <div class="body">
1010         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
1011 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
1012 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
1013 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
1014 Dibb.</p>
1015
1016 <p>I just wrapped up
1017 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
1018 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
1019 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
1020 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
1021 0.17.</p>
1022
1023 <ul>
1024
1025  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
1026  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
1027    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
1028  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
1029  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
1030  <li>Fix include orders</li>
1031  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
1032  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
1033  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
1034    the palette size is the same.</li>
1035  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
1036  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
1037  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
1038  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
1039    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
1040
1041 </ul>
1042
1043 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
1044 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
1045 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
1046
1047       </div>
1048       <div class="tags">
1049
1050
1051         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
1052
1053
1054       </div>
1055     </div>
1056     <div class="padding"></div>
1057
1058     <div class="entry">
1059       <div class="title">
1060         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
1061       </div>
1062       <div class="date">
1063         26th September 2014
1064       </div>
1065       <div class="body">
1066         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1067 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
1068 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
1069 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
1070 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
1071 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
1072 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
1073 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
1074 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
1075 future.  The
1076 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
1077 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
1078 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
1079 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
1080 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
1081
1082 <p>First, download the test ISO via
1083 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
1084 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
1085 or rsync (use
1086 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
1087 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
1088 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
1089 install with some tweaking.</p>
1090
1091 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
1092 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
1093
1094 <p><blockquote><pre>
1095 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
1096 </pre></blockquote></p>
1097
1098 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
1099 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
1100 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
1101 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
1102
1103 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
1104 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
1105 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
1106 your need.</p>
1107
1108 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
1109 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
1110 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
1111 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
1112 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
1113 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
1114 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
1115 days.</p>
1116
1117 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
1118 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
1119 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
1120 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
1121 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
1122 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
1123 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
1124 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
1125 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
1126
1127 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
1128 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
1129 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
1130
1131       </div>
1132       <div class="tags">
1133
1134
1135         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>.
1136
1137
1138       </div>
1139     </div>
1140     <div class="padding"></div>
1141
1142     <div class="entry">
1143       <div class="title">
1144         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
1145       </div>
1146       <div class="date">
1147         25th September 2014
1148       </div>
1149       <div class="body">
1150         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
1151 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
1152 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
1153 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
1154 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
1155 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
1156 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
1157 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
1158 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
1159 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
1160 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
1161 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
1162 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
1163
1164 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
1165 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
1166 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
1167 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
1168 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
1169 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
1170 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
1171 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
1172 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
1173 list</a>. :)</p>
1174
1175       </div>
1176       <div class="tags">
1177
1178
1179         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
1180
1181
1182       </div>
1183     </div>
1184     <div class="padding"></div>
1185
1186     <div class="entry">
1187       <div class="title">
1188         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
1189       </div>
1190       <div class="date">
1191         16th September 2014
1192       </div>
1193       <div class="body">
1194         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
1195 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
1196 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
1197 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
1198 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
1199 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
1200 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
1201 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
1202 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
1203 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
1204 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
1205 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
1206 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
1207 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
1208
1209 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
1210 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
1211 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
1212 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
1213 depend on the small and clever package
1214 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
1215 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
1216 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
1217 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
1218 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
1219 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
1220 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
1221 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
1222 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
1223 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
1224 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
1225
1226 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
1227 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
1228 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
1229 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
1230 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
1231 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
1232 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
1233 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
1234 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
1235 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
1236 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
1237 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
1238 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
1239 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
1240 dialog.</p>
1241
1242 <p><table>
1243
1244 <tr>
1245 <th>Machine/setup</th>
1246 <th>Original tasksel</th>
1247 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
1248 <th>Reduction</th>
1249 </tr>
1250
1251 <tr>
1252 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
1253 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
1254 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
1255 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
1256 </tr>
1257
1258 <tr>
1259 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
1260 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
1261 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
1262 <td>23 min 40%</td>
1263 </tr>
1264
1265 <tr>
1266 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
1267 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
1268 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
1269 <td>11 min 50%</td>
1270 </tr>
1271
1272 <tr>
1273 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
1274 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
1275 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
1276 <td>2 min 33%</td>
1277 </tr>
1278
1279 <tr>
1280 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
1281 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
1282 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
1283 <td>4 min 21%</td>
1284 </tr>
1285
1286 </table></p>
1287
1288 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
1289 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
1290 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
1291 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
1292 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
1293 installed.</p>
1294
1295 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
1296 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
1297 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
1298 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
1299 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
1300 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
1301 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
1302 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
1303 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
1304 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
1305 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
1306 for the entire installation.</p>
1307
1308 <p>I've implemented this in the
1309 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
1310 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
1311 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
1312 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
1313 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
1314
1315 <p><blockquote><pre>
1316 #!/bin/sh
1317 set -e
1318 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1319 info() {
1320     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
1321 }
1322 error() {
1323     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
1324 }
1325 override_install() {
1326     apt-install eatmydata || true
1327     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
1328         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1329             file=/usr/bin/$bin
1330             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
1331             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
1332                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
1333                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
1334                     > /target$file.edu
1335                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
1336                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1337                     --rename --quiet --add $file
1338                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
1339             else
1340                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
1341             fi
1342         done
1343     else
1344         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
1345     fi
1346 }
1347
1348 override_install
1349 </pre></blockquote></p>
1350
1351 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
1352 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
1353
1354 <p><blockquote><pre>
1355 #! /bin/sh -e
1356 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
1357 error() {
1358     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
1359 }
1360 remove_install_override() {
1361     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
1362         file=/usr/bin/$bin
1363         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
1364             rm /target$file
1365             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
1366                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
1367             rm /target$file.edu
1368         else
1369             error "Missing divert for $file."
1370         fi
1371     done
1372     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
1373 }
1374
1375 remove_install_override
1376 </pre></blockquote></p>
1377
1378 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
1379 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
1380 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
1381
1382 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
1383 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
1384 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
1385 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
1386 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
1387 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
1388 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
1389 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
1390 everyone.</p>
1391
1392 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
1393 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
1394 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
1395 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
1396
1397 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
1398 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
1399 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
1400 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
1401 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
1402
1403 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
1404 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
1405 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
1406 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
1407 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
1408
1409       </div>
1410       <div class="tags">
1411
1412
1413         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>.
1414
1415
1416       </div>
1417     </div>
1418     <div class="padding"></div>
1419
1420     <div class="entry">
1421       <div class="title">
1422         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
1423       </div>
1424       <div class="date">
1425         10th September 2014
1426       </div>
1427       <div class="body">
1428         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
1429 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
1430 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
1431 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
1432 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
1433 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
1434 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
1435 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
1436 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
1437 those problems are gone now.</p>
1438
1439 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
1440 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
1441 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
1442 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
1443 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
1444
1445 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
1446 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
1447 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
1448
1449 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
1450 line:</p>
1451
1452 <p><blockquote><pre>
1453 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
1454 </pre></blockquote></p>
1455
1456 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
1457 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
1458 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
1459 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
1460
1461 <p><blockquote><pre>
1462 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
1463 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
1464 %
1465 </pre></blockquote></p>
1466
1467 <p>Now if only
1468 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
1469 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
1470 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
1471 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
1472 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
1473 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
1474 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
1475 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
1476 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
1477
1478       </div>
1479       <div class="tags">
1480
1481
1482         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
1483
1484
1485       </div>
1486     </div>
1487     <div class="padding"></div>
1488
1489     <div class="entry">
1490       <div class="title">
1491         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
1492       </div>
1493       <div class="date">
1494         17th June 2014
1495       </div>
1496       <div class="body">
1497         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1498 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
1499 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
1500 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
1501 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
1502
1503 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
1504 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
1505 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
1506 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
1507 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
1508 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
1509 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
1510 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
1511 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
1512 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
1513 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
1514 goals.</p>
1515
1516 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
1517 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
1518 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
1519 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
1520 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
1521 chapters together into one large web page (aka
1522 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
1523 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
1524 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
1525 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
1526 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
1527 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
1528 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
1529 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
1530 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
1531 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
1532 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
1533 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
1534 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
1535 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
1536 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
1537 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
1538 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
1539 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
1540
1541 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
1542 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
1543 track the English original.  For this we use the
1544 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
1545 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
1546 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
1547 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
1548 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
1549 files), which the translations update with the native language
1550 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
1551 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
1552 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
1553 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
1554 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
1555 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
1556 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
1557 of the documentation.</p>
1558
1559 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
1560 recommend using
1561 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
1562 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
1563 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
1564 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
1565 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
1566 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
1567 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
1568 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
1569
1570 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
1571 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
1572 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
1573 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
1574 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
1575 translated images by storing translated versions in
1576 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
1577 package maintainers know more.</p>
1578
1579 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
1580 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
1581 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
1582 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
1583 PDF version</a> or the
1584 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
1585 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
1586 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
1587
1588 <p>To learn more, check out
1589 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
1590 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
1591 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
1592 manual on the wiki</a> and
1593 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
1594 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
1595
1596       </div>
1597       <div class="tags">
1598
1599
1600         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1601
1602
1603       </div>
1604     </div>
1605     <div class="padding"></div>
1606
1607     <div class="entry">
1608       <div class="title">
1609         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
1610       </div>
1611       <div class="date">
1612         23rd April 2014
1613       </div>
1614       <div class="body">
1615         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
1616 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
1617 So I implemented one, using
1618 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
1619 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
1620 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
1621 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
1622 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
1623 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
1624
1625 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
1626 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
1627 packages to install.  The first part is in
1628 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
1629 this:</p>
1630
1631 <p><blockquote><pre>
1632 Task: isenkram
1633 Section: hardware
1634 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
1635  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
1636  proposed.
1637 Test-new-install: mark show
1638 Relevance: 8
1639 Packages: for-current-hardware
1640 </pre></blockquote></p>
1641
1642 <p>The second part is in
1643 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
1644 this:</p>
1645
1646 <p><blockquote><pre>
1647 #!/bin/sh
1648 #
1649 (
1650     isenkram-lookup
1651     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
1652 ) | sort -u
1653 </pre></blockquote></p>
1654
1655 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
1656 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
1657 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
1658 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
1659 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
1660 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
1661
1662 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
1663 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
1664 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
1665 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
1666 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
1667 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
1668 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
1669 the python-apt code (bug
1670 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
1671 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
1672 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
1673 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
1674 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
1675 unstable today.</p>
1676
1677 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
1678 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
1679 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
1680 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
1681 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
1682 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
1683 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
1684 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
1685 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
1686
1687 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
1688 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
1689 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
1690 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
1691 package.  See also
1692 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
1693 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
1694 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
1695 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
1696
1697       </div>
1698       <div class="tags">
1699
1700
1701         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>.
1702
1703
1704       </div>
1705     </div>
1706     <div class="padding"></div>
1707
1708     <div class="entry">
1709       <div class="title">
1710         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
1711       </div>
1712       <div class="date">
1713         15th April 2014
1714       </div>
1715       <div class="body">
1716         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
1717 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
1718 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
1719 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
1720 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
1721 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
1722
1723 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
1724 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
1725 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
1726 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
1727 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
1728 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
1729 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
1730
1731 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
1732 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
1733 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
1734 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
1735 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
1736 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
1737 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
1738 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
1739 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
1740 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
1741 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
1742 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
1743
1744 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
1745 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
1746 become root:</p>
1747
1748 <p><pre>
1749 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1750   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1751   u-boot-tools
1752 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1753   freedom-maker
1754 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1755 </pre></p>
1756
1757 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1758 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
1759 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
1760 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
1761 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
1762 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
1763 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
1764 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
1765
1766 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1767 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1768 the preseed values:</p>
1769
1770 <p><pre>
1771 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
1772 </pre></p>
1773
1774 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
1775 it still work.</p>
1776
1777 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
1778 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
1779 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
1780 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
1781 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
1782 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
1783 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
1784
1785 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1786 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1787 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
1788 irc.debian.org)</a> and
1789 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1790 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1791
1792       </div>
1793       <div class="tags">
1794
1795
1796         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
1797
1798
1799       </div>
1800     </div>
1801     <div class="padding"></div>
1802
1803     <div class="entry">
1804       <div class="title">
1805         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
1806       </div>
1807       <div class="date">
1808          9th April 2014
1809       </div>
1810       <div class="body">
1811         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
1812 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
1813 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
1814 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
1815 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
1816 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
1817 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
1818 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
1819 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
1820 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
1821 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
1822 have looked at a system called
1823 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
1824 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
1825
1826 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
1827 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
1828 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
1829 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
1830 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
1831 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
1832 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
1833 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
1834 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
1835 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
1836 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
1837 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
1838 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
1839
1840 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
1841 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
1842 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
1843 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
1844 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
1845 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
1846 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
1847 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
1848 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
1849 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
1850 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
1851 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
1852 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
1853 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
1854 account.</p>
1855
1856 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
1857 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
1858 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
1859 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
1860 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
1861 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
1862 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
1863
1864 <p><blockquote><pre>
1865 [s3c]
1866 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1867 backend-login: API-login
1868 backend-password: API-password
1869 fs-passphrase: local-password
1870 </pre></blockquote></p>
1871
1872 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
1873 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
1874 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
1875 details and password to create it:</p>
1876
1877 <p><blockquote><pre>
1878 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
1879 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1880   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1881 Enter backend login:
1882 Enter backend password:
1883 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
1884 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
1885 Enter encryption password:
1886 Confirm encryption password:
1887 Generating random encryption key...
1888 Creating metadata tables...
1889 Dumping metadata...
1890 ..objects..
1891 ..blocks..
1892 ..inodes..
1893 ..inode_blocks..
1894 ..symlink_targets..
1895 ..names..
1896 ..contents..
1897 ..ext_attributes..
1898 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1899 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
1900 # </pre></blockquote></p>
1901
1902 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
1903
1904 <p><blockquote><pre>
1905 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1906   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
1907 Using 4 upload threads.
1908 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
1909 Reading metadata...
1910 ..objects..
1911 ..blocks..
1912 ..inodes..
1913 ..inode_blocks..
1914 ..symlink_targets..
1915 ..names..
1916 ..contents..
1917 ..ext_attributes..
1918 Mounting filesystem...
1919 # df -h /s3ql
1920 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
1921 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
1922 #
1923 </pre></blockquote></p>
1924
1925 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
1926 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
1927 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
1928 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
1929 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
1930 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
1931
1932 <p><blockquote><pre>
1933 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
1934 #
1935 </pre></blockquote></p>
1936
1937 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
1938 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
1939 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
1940 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
1941 file system:</p>
1942
1943 <p><blockquote><pre>
1944 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
1945 Using cached metadata.
1946 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
1947 Checking DB integrity...
1948 Creating temporary extra indices...
1949 Checking lost+found...
1950 Checking cached objects...
1951 Checking names (refcounts)...
1952 Checking contents (names)...
1953 Checking contents (inodes)...
1954 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
1955 Checking objects (reference counts)...
1956 Checking objects (backend)...
1957 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
1958 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
1959 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
1960 Checking objects (sizes)...
1961 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
1962 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
1963 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
1964 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
1965 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
1966 Checking inodes (sizes)...
1967 Checking extended attributes (names)...
1968 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
1969 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
1970 Checking directory reachability...
1971 Checking unix conventions...
1972 Checking referential integrity...
1973 Dropping temporary indices...
1974 Backing up old metadata...
1975 Dumping metadata...
1976 ..objects..
1977 ..blocks..
1978 ..inodes..
1979 ..inode_blocks..
1980 ..symlink_targets..
1981 ..names..
1982 ..contents..
1983 ..ext_attributes..
1984 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1985 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
1986 #
1987 </pre></blockquote></p>
1988
1989 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
1990 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
1991 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1992 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
1993 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1994 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1995 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
1996 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
1997 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1998 working set.</p>
1999
2000 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
2001 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
2002 busy:</p>
2003
2004 <p><blockquote><pre>
2005 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
2006   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
2007 Using 8 upload threads.
2008 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
2009 #
2010 </pre></blockquote></p>
2011
2012 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
2013 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
2014 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
2015 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
2016 s3qlctrl:
2017
2018 <p><blockquote><pre>
2019 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
2020 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
2021 #
2022 </pre></blockquote></p>
2023
2024 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
2025 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
2026 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
2027 a report:</p>
2028
2029 <p><blockquote><pre>
2030 # s3qlstat /s3ql
2031 Directory entries:    9141
2032 Inodes:               9143
2033 Data blocks:          8851
2034 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
2035 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
2036 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
2037 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
2038 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
2039 #
2040 </pre></blockquote></p>
2041
2042 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
2043 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
2044 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
2045 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
2046 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
2047 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
2048 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
2049 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
2050 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
2051 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
2052 best.</p>
2053
2054 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
2055 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
2056 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
2057 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
2058 poster is titled
2059 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
2060 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
2061 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
2062 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
2063 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
2064
2065 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
2066 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
2067 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
2068 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
2069 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
2070 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
2071 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
2072 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
2073
2074 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
2075 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
2076 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
2077 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
2078 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
2079 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
2080 only read from it.</p>
2081
2082 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2083 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2084 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2085
2086       </div>
2087       <div class="tags">
2088
2089
2090         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
2091
2092
2093       </div>
2094     </div>
2095     <div class="padding"></div>
2096
2097     <div class="entry">
2098       <div class="title">
2099         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
2100       </div>
2101       <div class="date">
2102         14th March 2014
2103       </div>
2104       <div class="body">
2105         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
2106 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
2107 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
2108 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
2109 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
2110 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
2111 release (0.2).</p>
2112
2113 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
2114 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
2115 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
2116 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
2117 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
2118 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
2119 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
2120 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
2121 and build using
2122 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
2123 with a user with sudo access to become root:
2124
2125 <pre>
2126 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
2127   freedom-maker
2128 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
2129   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
2130   u-boot-tools
2131 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
2132 </pre>
2133
2134 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
2135 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
2136 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
2137 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
2138 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
2139 kpartx call.</p>
2140
2141 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
2142 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
2143 the preseed values:</p>
2144
2145 <pre>
2146 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
2147 </pre>
2148
2149 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
2150 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
2151 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
2152 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
2153 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
2154 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
2155
2156 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
2157 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
2158 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
2159 irc.debian.org)</a> and
2160 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2161 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2162
2163       </div>
2164       <div class="tags">
2165
2166
2167         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2168
2169
2170       </div>
2171     </div>
2172     <div class="padding"></div>
2173
2174     <div class="entry">
2175       <div class="title">
2176         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
2177       </div>
2178       <div class="date">
2179         22nd February 2014
2180       </div>
2181       <div class="body">
2182         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
2183 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
2184 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
2185 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
2186 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
2187 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
2188 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
2189 proper home since then.</p>
2190
2191 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
2192 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
2193 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
2194 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
2195 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
2196
2197 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
2198 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
2199 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
2200 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
2201 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
2202 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
2203 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
2204 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
2205 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
2206
2207       </div>
2208       <div class="tags">
2209
2210
2211         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>.
2212
2213
2214       </div>
2215     </div>
2216     <div class="padding"></div>
2217
2218     <div class="entry">
2219       <div class="title">
2220         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
2221       </div>
2222       <div class="date">
2223          3rd February 2014
2224       </div>
2225       <div class="body">
2226         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
2227 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
2228 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
2229 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
2230 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
2231 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
2232 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
2233 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
2234 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
2235
2236 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
2237 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
2238 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
2239 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
2240 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
2241 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
2242
2243 <p><blockquote><pre>
2244 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
2245 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
2246 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
2247 dhclient /dev/eth0
2248 </pre></blockquote></p>
2249
2250 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
2251 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
2252 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
2253
2254 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
2255 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
2256 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
2257 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
2258 side.</p>
2259
2260 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
2261 stuff:</p>
2262
2263 <p><blockquote><pre>
2264 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
2265 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
2266 EOF
2267 apt-get update
2268 apt-get dist-upgrade
2269 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
2270     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
2271 update-alternatives --config runsystem
2272 </pre></blockquote></p>
2273
2274 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
2275 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
2276 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
2277 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
2278 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
2279 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
2280 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
2281 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
2282 ssh instead.
2283
2284 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
2285 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
2286 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
2287 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
2288 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
2289 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
2290
2291 <p><blockquote><pre>
2292 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
2293 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
2294 EOF
2295 </pre></blockquote></p>
2296
2297 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
2298 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
2299 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
2300 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
2301
2302 <p><blockquote><pre>
2303 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
2304 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
2305 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
2306 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
2307 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
2308 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
2309 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
2310 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
2311 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
2312 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
2313 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
2314 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
2315 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
2316 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
2317 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
2318 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
2319 #
2320 </pre></blockquote></p>
2321
2322 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
2323 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
2324 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
2325 command line stuff.<p>
2326
2327       </div>
2328       <div class="tags">
2329
2330
2331         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>.
2332
2333
2334       </div>
2335     </div>
2336     <div class="padding"></div>
2337
2338     <div class="entry">
2339       <div class="title">
2340         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
2341       </div>
2342       <div class="date">
2343         14th January 2014
2344       </div>
2345       <div class="body">
2346         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
2347 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
2348 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
2349 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
2350 the source.  The company behind it provide
2351 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
2352 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
2353 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
2354 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
2355 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
2356 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
2357 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
2358 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
2359 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
2360 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
2361 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
2362 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
2363 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
2364 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
2365 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
2366 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
2367 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
2368 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
2369 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
2370
2371 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
2372
2373 <ul>
2374
2375   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
2376   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
2377   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
2378
2379 </ul>
2380
2381 <p>You can
2382 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
2383 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
2384 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
2385 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
2386 include a test suite check.</p>
2387
2388       </div>
2389       <div class="tags">
2390
2391
2392         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2393
2394
2395       </div>
2396     </div>
2397     <div class="padding"></div>
2398
2399     <div class="entry">
2400       <div class="title">
2401         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
2402       </div>
2403       <div class="date">
2404         24th November 2013
2405       </div>
2406       <div class="body">
2407         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
2408 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
2409 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
2410 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
2411 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
2412 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
2413 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
2414 is working on.  I checked the
2415 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
2416 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
2417 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
2418 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
2419 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
2420 These are the release notes:</p>
2421
2422 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
2423
2424 <ul>
2425
2426   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
2427    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
2428    up.</li>
2429
2430   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
2431
2432   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
2433    Matthias Klose.</li>
2434
2435   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
2436    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
2437
2438   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
2439    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
2440    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
2441
2442 </ul>
2443
2444 <p>You can
2445 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
2446 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
2447 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
2448 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
2449 include a testsuite check.</p>
2450
2451       </div>
2452       <div class="tags">
2453
2454
2455         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2456
2457
2458       </div>
2459     </div>
2460     <div class="padding"></div>
2461
2462     <div class="entry">
2463       <div class="title">
2464         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
2465       </div>
2466       <div class="date">
2467          2nd November 2013
2468       </div>
2469       <div class="body">
2470         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
2471 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
2472 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
2473 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
2474 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
2475
2476 <p><pre>
2477 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
2478 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
2479 # Provides:          rsyslog
2480 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
2481 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
2482 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
2483 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
2484 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
2485 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
2486 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
2487 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
2488 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
2489 ### END INIT INFO
2490 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
2491 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
2492 </pre></p>
2493
2494 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
2495 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
2496 info/comments.</p>
2497
2498 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
2499 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
2500
2501 <p><pre>
2502 #!/bin/sh
2503
2504 # Define LSB log_* functions.
2505 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
2506 # and status_of_proc is working.
2507 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
2508
2509 #
2510 # Function that starts the daemon/service
2511
2512 #
2513 do_start()
2514 {
2515         # Return
2516         #   0 if daemon has been started
2517         #   1 if daemon was already running
2518         #   2 if daemon could not be started
2519         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
2520                 || return 1
2521         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
2522                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
2523                 || return 2
2524         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
2525         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
2526         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
2527 }
2528
2529 #
2530 # Function that stops the daemon/service
2531 #
2532 do_stop()
2533 {
2534         # Return
2535         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
2536         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
2537         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
2538         #   other if a failure occurred
2539         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2540         RETVAL="$?"
2541         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
2542         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
2543         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
2544         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
2545         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
2546         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
2547         # sleep for some time.
2548         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
2549         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
2550         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
2551         rm -f $PIDFILE
2552         return "$RETVAL"
2553 }
2554
2555 #
2556 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
2557 #
2558 do_reload() {
2559         #
2560         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
2561         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
2562         # then implement that here.
2563         #
2564         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
2565         return 0
2566 }
2567
2568 SCRIPTNAME=$1
2569 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
2570 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
2571 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
2572     script="$1"
2573     shift
2574     . $script
2575 else
2576     exit 0
2577 fi
2578
2579 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
2580 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
2581
2582 # Exit if the package is not installed
2583 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
2584
2585 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
2586 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
2587
2588 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
2589 . /lib/init/vars.sh
2590
2591 case "$1" in
2592   start)
2593         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
2594         do_start
2595         case "$?" in
2596                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2597                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2598         esac
2599         ;;
2600   stop)
2601         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
2602         do_stop
2603         case "$?" in
2604                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
2605                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
2606         esac
2607         ;;
2608   status)
2609         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
2610         ;;
2611   #reload|force-reload)
2612         #
2613         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
2614         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
2615         #
2616         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
2617         #do_reload
2618         #log_end_msg $?
2619         #;;
2620   restart|force-reload)
2621         #
2622         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
2623         # 'force-reload' alias
2624         #
2625         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
2626         do_stop
2627         case "$?" in
2628           0|1)
2629                 do_start
2630                 case "$?" in
2631                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
2632                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
2633                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
2634                 esac
2635                 ;;
2636           *)
2637                 # Failed to stop
2638                 log_end_msg 1
2639                 ;;
2640         esac
2641         ;;
2642   *)
2643         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
2644         exit 3
2645         ;;
2646 esac
2647
2648 :
2649 </pre></p>
2650
2651 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
2652 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
2653 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
2654 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
2655
2656 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
2657 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
2658 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
2659 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
2660 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
2661
2662       </div>
2663       <div class="tags">
2664
2665
2666         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>.
2667
2668
2669       </div>
2670     </div>
2671     <div class="padding"></div>
2672
2673     <div class="entry">
2674       <div class="title">
2675         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
2676       </div>
2677       <div class="date">
2678          1st November 2013
2679       </div>
2680       <div class="body">
2681         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
2682 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
2683 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
2684 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
2685 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
2686 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
2687 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
2688 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
2689 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
2690 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
2691 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
2692 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
2693
2694 <p>The source is now available from
2695 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
2696
2697       </div>
2698       <div class="tags">
2699
2700
2701         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>.
2702
2703
2704       </div>
2705     </div>
2706     <div class="padding"></div>
2707
2708     <div class="entry">
2709       <div class="title">
2710         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
2711       </div>
2712       <div class="date">
2713         27th October 2013
2714       </div>
2715       <div class="body">
2716         <p>The
2717 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
2718 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
2719 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
2720 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
2721 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
2722 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
2723 of a plan to simplify the build system for
2724 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
2725 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
2726 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
2727 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
2728 Raspberry Pi.</p>
2729
2730 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
2731 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
2732 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
2733 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
2734 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
2735 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
2736 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
2737 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
2738 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
2739 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
2740 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
2741 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
2742 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
2743 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
2744 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
2745 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
2746 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
2747 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
2748 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
2749 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
2750 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
2751 available from
2752 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
2753 upstream project page</a>.</p>
2754
2755 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
2756 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
2757 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
2758 list:</p>
2759
2760 <p><pre>
2761 #!/bin/sh
2762 set -e # Exit on first error
2763 rootdir="$1"
2764 cd "$rootdir"
2765 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
2766 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
2767 EOF
2768 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
2769 # install a kernel somewhere too.
2770 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
2771     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2772 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
2773 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
2774 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
2775 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
2776 </pre></p>
2777
2778 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
2779 to build the image:</p>
2780
2781 <pre>
2782 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
2783     --variant minbase \
2784     --arch armel \
2785     --distribution jessie \
2786     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
2787     --image test.img \
2788     --size 600M \
2789     --bootsize 64M \
2790     --boottype vfat \
2791     --log-level debug \
2792     --verbose \
2793     --no-kernel \
2794     --no-extlinux \
2795     --root-password raspberry \
2796     --hostname raspberrypi \
2797     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
2798     --customize `pwd`/customize \
2799     --package netbase \
2800     --package git-core \
2801     --package binutils \
2802     --package ca-certificates \
2803     --package wget \
2804     --package kmod
2805 </pre></p>
2806
2807 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
2808 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
2809 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
2810 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
2811 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
2812 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
2813 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
2814
2815 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
2816 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
2817 build dependency list.</p>
2818
2819 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
2820 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
2821 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
2822 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
2823
2824       </div>
2825       <div class="tags">
2826
2827
2828         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
2829
2830
2831       </div>
2832     </div>
2833     <div class="padding"></div>
2834
2835     <div class="entry">
2836       <div class="title">
2837         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
2838       </div>
2839       <div class="date">
2840         15th October 2013
2841       </div>
2842       <div class="body">
2843         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
2844 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
2845 these. :)</p>
2846
2847 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
2848 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
2849 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
2850 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
2851 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
2852 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
2853 hope you will to. :)</p>
2854
2855 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
2856 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
2857 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
2858 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
2859 donated.  Are you next?</p>
2860
2861 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
2862 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
2863 statement under the heading
2864 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
2865 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
2866 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
2867 too.</p>
2868
2869       </div>
2870       <div class="tags">
2871
2872
2873         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2874
2875
2876       </div>
2877     </div>
2878     <div class="padding"></div>
2879
2880     <div class="entry">
2881       <div class="title">
2882         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
2883       </div>
2884       <div class="date">
2885         27th September 2013
2886       </div>
2887       <div class="body">
2888         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
2889 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
2890 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
2891 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
2892
2893 <ul>
2894
2895 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
2896 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
2897
2898 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
2899 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2900
2901 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
2902 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
2903 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
2904 (Youtube)</li>
2905
2906 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
2907 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
2908
2909 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
2910 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
2911
2912 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
2913 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
2914 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
2915
2916 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
2917 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
2918 (Youtube)</li>
2919
2920 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
2921 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
2922
2923 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
2924 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
2925
2926 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
2927 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2928 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
2929
2930 </ul>
2931
2932 <p>A larger list is available from
2933 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
2934 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
2935
2936 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
2937 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
2938 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
2939 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
2940 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
2941 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
2942 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
2943 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
2944 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
2945 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
2946 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
2947
2948       </div>
2949       <div class="tags">
2950
2951
2952         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
2953
2954
2955       </div>
2956     </div>
2957     <div class="padding"></div>
2958
2959     <div class="entry">
2960       <div class="title">
2961         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
2962       </div>
2963       <div class="date">
2964         10th September 2013
2965       </div>
2966       <div class="body">
2967         <p>I was introduced to the
2968 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
2969 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2970 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2971 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
2972 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2973 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
2974 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2975 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
2976
2977 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2978 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2979 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
2980 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2981 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
2982
2983 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
2984 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2985 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2986 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2987 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
2988 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
2989 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
2990 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2991 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2992 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2993 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2994 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2995 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2996 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2997 missing in Debian).</p>
2998
2999 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
3000 scripts
3001 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
3002 and a administrative web interface
3003 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
3004 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
3005 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
3006 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
3007 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
3008 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
3009 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
3010 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
3011 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
3012 this is really working yet, see
3013 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
3014 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
3015 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
3016 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
3017 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
3018 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
3019 with lots of half baked features.</p>
3020
3021 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
3022 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
3023 at.</p>
3024
3025 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
3026
3027 <ol>
3028
3029 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
3030 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
3031 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
3032 to the Debian installer:<p>
3033 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
3034
3035 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
3036 install on.</li>
3037
3038 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
3039 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
3040
3041 </ol>
3042
3043 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
3044
3045 <ol>
3046
3047 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
3048 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
3049 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
3050 <pre>
3051 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
3052 </pre></li>
3053 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
3054 <pre>
3055 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
3056    apt-key add -
3057 apt-get update
3058 apt-get install freedombox-setup
3059 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
3060 </pre></li>
3061 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
3062
3063 </ol>
3064
3065 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
3066 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
3067 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
3068 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
3069 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
3070
3071 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
3072 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
3073 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
3074 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
3075
3076 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
3077 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
3078 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
3079 irc.debian.org and the
3080 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
3081 mailing list</a>.</p>
3082
3083 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
3084 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
3085 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
3086 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
3087 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
3088 default password is 'secret'.</p>
3089
3090       </div>
3091       <div class="tags">
3092
3093
3094         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
3095
3096
3097       </div>
3098     </div>
3099     <div class="padding"></div>
3100
3101     <div class="entry">
3102       <div class="title">
3103         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
3104       </div>
3105       <div class="date">
3106         18th August 2013
3107       </div>
3108       <div class="body">
3109         <p>Earlier, I reported about
3110 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
3111 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
3112 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
3113 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
3114 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
3115 currently on the disk.</p>
3116
3117 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
3118 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
3119 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
3120 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
3121 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
3122 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
3123 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
3124 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
3125 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
3126 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
3127 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
3128 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
3129 the broken disks.</p>
3130
3131       </div>
3132       <div class="tags">
3133
3134
3135         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>.
3136
3137
3138       </div>
3139     </div>
3140     <div class="padding"></div>
3141
3142     <div class="entry">
3143       <div class="title">
3144         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
3145       </div>
3146       <div class="date">
3147         17th July 2013
3148       </div>
3149       <div class="body">
3150         <p>Today I switched to
3151 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
3152 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
3153 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
3154 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
3155 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
3156 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
3157 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
3158 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
3159 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
3160 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
3161 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
3162 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
3163 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
3164 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
3165 station from now on.</p>
3166
3167 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
3168 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
3169 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
3170 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
3171 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
3172 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
3173 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
3174 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
3175 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
3176 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
3177 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
3178 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
3179
3180 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
3181 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
3182 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
3183 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
3184 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
3185 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
3186 parameters are tuned:</p>
3187
3188 <ul>
3189
3190 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
3191     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
3192
3193 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
3194     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
3195     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
3196
3197 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
3198     systems.</li>
3199
3200 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
3201     /etc/fstab.</li>
3202
3203 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
3204
3205 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
3206     cron.daily).</li>
3207
3208 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
3209     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
3210
3211 </ul>
3212
3213 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
3214 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
3215 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
3216 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
3217 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
3218 from getting the data on the disk (see
3219 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
3220 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
3221 right thing to do.</p>
3222
3223 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
3224 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
3225 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
3226
3227 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
3228 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
3229 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
3230 instead of during my work.</p>
3231
3232 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
3233 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
3234
3235 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
3236 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
3237 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
3238
3239 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
3240 there.</p>
3241
3242 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
3243 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
3244 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
3245 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
3246 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
3247 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
3248 back.</p>
3249
3250       </div>
3251       <div class="tags">
3252
3253
3254         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>.
3255
3256
3257       </div>
3258     </div>
3259     <div class="padding"></div>
3260
3261     <div class="entry">
3262       <div class="title">
3263         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
3264       </div>
3265       <div class="date">
3266         10th July 2013
3267       </div>
3268       <div class="body">
3269         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
3270 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
3271 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
3272 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
3273 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
3274 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
3275 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
3276 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
3277
3278 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
3279 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
3280 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
3281 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
3282 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
3283 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
3284 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
3285 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
3286 lock up when I download a new
3287 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
3288 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
3289 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
3290
3291 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
3292 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
3293 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
3294 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
3295 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
3296 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
3297
3298 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
3299 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
3300 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
3301 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
3302 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
3303 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
3304
3305 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
3306 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
3307 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
3308 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
3309 exist).</p>
3310
3311       </div>
3312       <div class="tags">
3313
3314
3315         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>.
3316
3317
3318       </div>
3319     </div>
3320     <div class="padding"></div>
3321
3322     <div class="entry">
3323       <div class="title">
3324         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
3325       </div>
3326       <div class="date">
3327          9th July 2013
3328       </div>
3329       <div class="body">
3330         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
3331 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
3332 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
3333 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
3334 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3335 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
3336 Bitraf</a>.</p>
3337
3338 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
3339 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
3340 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
3341 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
3342 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
3343
3344       </div>
3345       <div class="tags">
3346
3347
3348         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>.
3349
3350
3351       </div>
3352     </div>
3353     <div class="padding"></div>
3354
3355     <div class="entry">
3356       <div class="title">
3357         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
3358       </div>
3359       <div class="date">
3360          5th July 2013
3361       </div>
3362       <div class="body">
3363         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
3364 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
3365 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
3366 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
3367 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
3368 ended up picking a
3369 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
3370 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
3371 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
3372 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
3373 on that below.</p>
3374
3375 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3376 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3377 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3378 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3379 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3380 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
3381 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
3382 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
3383 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
3384
3385 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
3386 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
3387 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
3388 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
3389 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
3390 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
3391 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
3392
3393 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
3394 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
3395
3396 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
3397 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
3398 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
3399 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
3400 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
3401 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
3402 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
3403 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
3404 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
3405 kernel developers as
3406 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
3407 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
3408 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
3409 Lenovo forums, both for
3410 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
3411 2012-11-10</a> and for
3412 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
3413 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
3414 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
3415 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
3416 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
3417 There is even a
3418 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
3419 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
3420 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
3421
3422 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
3423 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
3424 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
3425 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
3426 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
3427 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
3428 fixed. :)</p>
3429
3430       </div>
3431       <div class="tags">
3432
3433
3434         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>.
3435
3436
3437       </div>
3438     </div>
3439     <div class="padding"></div>
3440
3441     <div class="entry">
3442       <div class="title">
3443         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
3444       </div>
3445       <div class="date">
3446          4th July 2013
3447       </div>
3448       <div class="body">
3449         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
3450 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
3451 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
3452 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
3453 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
3454 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
3455 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
3456 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
3457 with an expencive door stop.</p>
3458
3459 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
3460 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
3461 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
3462 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
3463 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
3464 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
3465 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
3466
3467 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
3468 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
3469 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
3470 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
3471 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
3472 new laptop now. :)</p>
3473
3474 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
3475
3476       </div>
3477       <div class="tags">
3478
3479
3480         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>.
3481
3482
3483       </div>
3484     </div>
3485     <div class="padding"></div>
3486
3487     <div class="entry">
3488       <div class="title">
3489         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
3490       </div>
3491       <div class="date">
3492         25th June 2013
3493       </div>
3494       <div class="body">
3495         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
3496 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
3497 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
3498 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
3499 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
3500 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
3501 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
3502 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
3503 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
3504 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
3505 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
3506
3507 <p><pre>
3508 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3509 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
3510 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
3511 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
3512 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
3513 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
3514 firmware-ipw2x00
3515 firmware-ipw2x00
3516 Preconfiguring packages ...
3517 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
3518 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
3519 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
3520 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
3521 #
3522 </pre></p>
3523
3524 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
3525 printed instead:</p>
3526
3527 <p><pre>
3528 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3529 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
3530 #
3531 </pre></p>
3532
3533 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
3534 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
3535
3536 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
3537 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
3538 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
3539 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
3540 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
3541 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
3542 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
3543 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
3544 machine.</p>
3545
3546 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
3547 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
3548 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
3549 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
3550 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
3551 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
3552
3553       </div>
3554       <div class="tags">
3555
3556
3557         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>.
3558
3559
3560       </div>
3561     </div>
3562     <div class="padding"></div>
3563
3564     <div class="entry">
3565       <div class="title">
3566         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
3567       </div>
3568       <div class="date">
3569         11th June 2013
3570       </div>
3571       <div class="body">
3572         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
3573 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
3574 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
3575 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
3576 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
3577 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
3578 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
3579 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
3580 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
3581 i915 driver used by the
3582 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3583 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
3584
3585 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
3586 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
3587 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
3588 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
3589 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
3590
3591 <pre>
3592 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
3593 update-initramfs -u -k all
3594 </pre>
3595
3596 <p>Since March 2012 there is
3597 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
3598 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
3599 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
3600 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
3601 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
3602 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
3603 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
3604 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
3605 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
3606 number.</p>
3607
3608 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
3609 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
3610
3611 <p><pre>
3612 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
3613     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
3614     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
3615  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
3616  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
3617     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
3618  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
3619     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
3620  Latency: 0
3621  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
3622  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
3623  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
3624  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
3625  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
3626  Capabilities: <access denied>
3627  Kernel driver in use: i915
3628 </pre></p>
3629
3630 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
3631
3632 <p><pre>
3633 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
3634        ...
3635         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
3636         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
3637        ...
3638 }
3639 </pre></p>
3640
3641 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
3642 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
3643 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
3644 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
3645 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
3646 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
3647 yet shown up in
3648 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
3649 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
3650 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
3651 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
3652 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
3653 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
3654
3655 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
3656 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
3657 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
3658 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
3659 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
3660 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
3661 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
3662 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
3663 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
3664 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
3665 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
3666 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
3667
3668 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
3669 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
3670 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
3671 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
3672 backlight.</p>
3673
3674       </div>
3675       <div class="tags">
3676
3677
3678         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>.
3679
3680
3681       </div>
3682     </div>
3683     <div class="padding"></div>
3684
3685     <div class="entry">
3686       <div class="title">
3687         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
3688       </div>
3689       <div class="date">
3690         27th May 2013
3691       </div>
3692       <div class="body">
3693         <p>Two days ago, I asked
3694 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
3695 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
3696 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
3697 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
3698 and Windows 8.</p>
3699
3700 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
3701 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
3702 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
3703 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
3704 enough to tell.</p>
3705
3706 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
3707 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
3708 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
3709 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
3710 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
3711 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
3712 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
3713 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
3714 to follow.</p>
3715
3716 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
3717 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
3718 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
3719 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
3720 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
3721 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
3722 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
3723 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
3724
3725 <p>I've updated the
3726 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
3727 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
3728 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
3729 machine.</p>
3730
3731 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
3732 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
3733
3734       </div>
3735       <div class="tags">
3736
3737
3738         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>.
3739
3740
3741       </div>
3742     </div>
3743     <div class="padding"></div>
3744
3745     <div class="entry">
3746       <div class="title">
3747         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
3748       </div>
3749       <div class="date">
3750         25th May 2013
3751       </div>
3752       <div class="body">
3753         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
3754 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
3755 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
3756 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
3757 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
3758 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
3759
3760 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
3761 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
3762 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
3763 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
3764 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
3765 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
3766 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
3767 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
3768 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
3769 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
3770
3771 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
3772 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3773 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
3774 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
3775 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
3776 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
3777
3778 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
3779 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
3780 on new Laptops?</p>
3781
3782       </div>
3783       <div class="tags">
3784
3785
3786         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>.
3787
3788
3789       </div>
3790     </div>
3791     <div class="padding"></div>
3792
3793     <div class="entry">
3794       <div class="title">
3795         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
3796       </div>
3797       <div class="date">
3798         17th May 2013
3799       </div>
3800       <div class="body">
3801         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
3802 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
3803 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
3804 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
3805 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
3806 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
3807 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
3808 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
3809 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
3810 donate some money</a>.
3811
3812 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
3813 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
3814 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
3815 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
3816 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
3817
3818 <p>The script,
3819 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
3820 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
3821 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
3822 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
3823
3824 <ol>
3825
3826 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
3827 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
3828 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
3829     our configuration.</li>
3830 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
3831     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
3832     according to the profile specified in the config above,
3833     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
3834 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
3835     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
3836 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
3837
3838 </ol>
3839
3840 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
3841 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
3842 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
3843 the needed packages.</p>
3844
3845 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
3846 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
3847 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
3848 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
3849 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
3850 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
3851
3852 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
3853 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
3854 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
3855
3856 <p><pre>
3857 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
3858 DESKTOP="lxde"
3859 </pre></p>
3860
3861 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
3862 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
3863 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
3864 boot.</p>
3865
3866       </div>
3867       <div class="tags">
3868
3869
3870         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>.
3871
3872
3873       </div>
3874     </div>
3875     <div class="padding"></div>
3876
3877     <div class="entry">
3878       <div class="title">
3879         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
3880       </div>
3881       <div class="date">
3882         11th May 2013
3883       </div>
3884       <div class="body">
3885         <P>In January,
3886 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
3887 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
3888 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
3889 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
3890 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
3891 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
3892 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
3893 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
3894 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
3895 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
3896 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
3897 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
3898
3899 <p><table>
3900 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
3901 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
3902 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
3903 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
3904 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
3905 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
3906 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
3907 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
3908 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
3909 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
3910 </table></p>
3911
3912 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
3913 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
3914 available in experimental.</p>
3915
3916 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
3917 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
3918 for LEGO designers.</p>
3919
3920       </div>
3921       <div class="tags">
3922
3923
3924         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>.
3925
3926
3927       </div>
3928     </div>
3929     <div class="padding"></div>
3930
3931     <div class="entry">
3932       <div class="title">
3933         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
3934       </div>
3935       <div class="date">
3936          5th May 2013
3937       </div>
3938       <div class="body">
3939         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
3940 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
3941 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
3942 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
3943 soon.</p>
3944
3945 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
3946 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
3947 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
3948 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
3949 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
3950 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
3951 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
3952 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
3953 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
3954 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
3955 Edu.</a>
3956
3957 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
3958 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
3959 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
3960 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
3961 follow.<p>
3962
3963       </div>
3964       <div class="tags">
3965
3966
3967         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>.
3968
3969
3970       </div>
3971     </div>
3972     <div class="padding"></div>
3973
3974     <div class="entry">
3975       <div class="title">
3976         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
3977       </div>
3978       <div class="date">
3979          3rd April 2013
3980       </div>
3981       <div class="body">
3982         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
3983 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
3984 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
3985 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
3986
3987 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
3988 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
3989 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
3990 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
3991 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
3992 BTS. :)</p>
3993
3994       </div>
3995       <div class="tags">
3996
3997
3998         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>.
3999
4000
4001       </div>
4002     </div>
4003     <div class="padding"></div>
4004
4005     <div class="entry">
4006       <div class="title">
4007         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
4008       </div>
4009       <div class="date">
4010          2nd February 2013
4011       </div>
4012       <div class="body">
4013         <p>My
4014 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
4015 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
4016 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
4017 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
4018 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
4019 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
4020 version too.</p>
4021
4022 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
4023 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
4024 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
4025 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
4026 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
4027 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
4028 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
4029 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
4030
4031 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
4032 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
4033 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
4034 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
4035 it. :)</p>
4036
4037 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4038 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4039 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4040
4041       </div>
4042       <div class="tags">
4043
4044
4045         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>.
4046
4047
4048       </div>
4049     </div>
4050     <div class="padding"></div>
4051
4052     <div class="entry">
4053       <div class="title">
4054         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
4055       </div>
4056       <div class="date">
4057         22nd January 2013
4058       </div>
4059       <div class="body">
4060         <p>Yesterday, I
4061 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
4062 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
4063 pluggable hardware devices, which I
4064 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
4065 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
4066 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
4067 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
4068 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
4069 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
4070 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
4071 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
4072 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
4073 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
4074
4075 <pre>
4076 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
4077 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
4078 </pre>
4079
4080 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
4081 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
4082 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
4083 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
4084
4085 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
4086 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
4087 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
4088 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
4089 word.</p>
4090
4091 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
4092 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
4093 process.</p>
4094
4095 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
4096 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
4097
4098       </div>
4099       <div class="tags">
4100
4101
4102         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>.
4103
4104
4105       </div>
4106     </div>
4107     <div class="padding"></div>
4108
4109     <div class="entry">
4110       <div class="title">
4111         <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>
4112       </div>
4113       <div class="date">
4114         21st January 2013
4115       </div>
4116       <div class="body">
4117         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
4118 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
4119 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
4120 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
4121 it, fetch the
4122 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
4123 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
4124 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
4125 autostart script.</p>
4126
4127 <p>The design is simple:</p>
4128
4129 <ul>
4130
4131 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
4132 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
4133
4134 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
4135 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
4136 initially did.</li>
4137
4138 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
4139 the APT database, a database
4140 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
4141 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
4142
4143 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
4144 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
4145 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
4146 package or packages.</li>
4147
4148 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
4149 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
4150
4151 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
4152 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
4153
4154 </ul>
4155
4156 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
4157 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
4158 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
4159 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
4160
4161 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
4162 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
4163 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
4164 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
4165 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
4166
4167 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
4168 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
4169 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
4170 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
4171 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
4172 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
4173 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
4174 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
4175
4176 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
4177 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
4178 '<tt>svn checkout
4179 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
4180 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
4181 devscripts package.</p>
4182
4183 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
4184 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
4185 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
4186 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
4187 instructions</a> for details.</p>
4188
4189       </div>
4190       <div class="tags">
4191
4192
4193         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>.
4194
4195
4196       </div>
4197     </div>
4198     <div class="padding"></div>
4199
4200     <div class="entry">
4201       <div class="title">
4202         <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>
4203       </div>
4204       <div class="date">
4205         19th January 2013
4206       </div>
4207       <div class="body">
4208         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
4209 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
4210 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
4211 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
4212 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
4213 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
4214 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
4215 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
4216 not a durable solution.
4217
4218 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
4219 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
4220
4221 <ul>
4222
4223 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
4224   than A4).</li>
4225 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
4226 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
4227 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
4228 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
4229 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
4230 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
4231 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
4232 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
4233 size).</li>
4234 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
4235   X.org packages.</li>
4236 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
4237   the time).
4238
4239 </ul>
4240
4241 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
4242 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
4243 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
4244 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
4245 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
4246 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
4247 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
4248 still be useful.</p>
4249
4250 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
4251 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
4252 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
4253 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
4254 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
4255 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
4256
4257       </div>
4258       <div class="tags">
4259
4260
4261         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>.
4262
4263
4264       </div>
4265     </div>
4266     <div class="padding"></div>
4267
4268     <div class="entry">
4269       <div class="title">
4270         <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>
4271       </div>
4272       <div class="date">
4273         18th January 2013
4274       </div>
4275       <div class="body">
4276         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
4277 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
4278 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
4279 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
4280 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
4281 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
4282 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
4283
4284 <pre>
4285 #!/usr/bin/python
4286 import sys
4287 import apt
4288 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
4289     cache = apt.Cache()
4290     cache.open(None)
4291     thepkgs = []
4292     for pkg in cache:
4293         version = pkg.candidate
4294         if version is None:
4295             version = pkg.installed
4296         if version is None:
4297             continue
4298         record = version.record
4299         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
4300             continue
4301         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
4302         for t in mime_types:
4303             t = t.rstrip().strip()
4304             if t == mimetype:
4305                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
4306     return thepkgs
4307 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
4308 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
4309     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
4310 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
4311 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
4312     print "  %s" %pkg
4313 </pre>
4314
4315 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
4316
4317 <pre>
4318 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
4319 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
4320   gecko-mediaplayer
4321 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
4322 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
4323   browser-plugin-gnash
4324 %
4325 </pre>
4326
4327 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
4328 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
4329 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
4330 anyone working on adding it?</p>
4331
4332 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
4333 request for icweasel support for this feature is
4334 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
4335 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
4336 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
4337 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
4338
4339       </div>
4340       <div class="tags">
4341
4342
4343         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>.
4344
4345
4346       </div>
4347     </div>
4348     <div class="padding"></div>
4349
4350     <div class="entry">
4351       <div class="title">
4352         <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>
4353       </div>
4354       <div class="date">
4355         16th January 2013
4356       </div>
4357       <div class="body">
4358         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
4359 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
4360 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
4361 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
4362 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
4363 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
4364 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
4365 downloaded by the browser.</p>
4366
4367 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
4368 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
4369 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
4370 can be found on the
4371 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
4372 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
4373 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
4374 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
4375 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
4376
4377 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
4378
4379 <pre>
4380   count MIME type
4381   ----- -----------------------
4382      32 text/plain
4383      30 audio/mpeg
4384      29 image/png
4385      28 image/jpeg
4386      27 application/ogg
4387      26 audio/x-mp3
4388      25 image/tiff
4389      25 image/gif
4390      22 image/bmp
4391      22 audio/x-wav
4392      20 audio/x-flac
4393      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4394      18 video/x-ms-asf
4395      18 audio/x-musepack
4396      18 audio/x-mpeg
4397      18 application/x-ogg
4398      17 video/mpeg
4399      17 audio/x-scpls
4400      17 audio/ogg
4401      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4402 </pre>
4403
4404 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
4405
4406 <pre>
4407   count MIME type
4408   ----- -----------------------
4409      33 text/plain
4410      32 image/png
4411      32 image/jpeg
4412      29 audio/mpeg
4413      27 image/gif
4414      26 image/tiff
4415      26 application/ogg
4416      25 audio/x-mp3
4417      22 image/bmp
4418      21 audio/x-wav
4419      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4420      19 audio/x-mpeg
4421      18 video/mpeg
4422      18 audio/x-scpls
4423      18 audio/x-flac
4424      18 application/x-ogg
4425      17 video/x-ms-asf
4426      17 text/html
4427      17 audio/x-musepack
4428      16 image/x-xbitmap
4429 </pre>
4430
4431 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
4432
4433 <pre>
4434   count MIME type
4435   ----- -----------------------
4436      31 text/plain
4437      31 image/png
4438      31 image/jpeg
4439      29 audio/mpeg
4440      28 application/ogg
4441      27 image/gif
4442      26 image/tiff
4443      26 audio/x-mp3
4444      23 audio/x-wav
4445      22 image/bmp
4446      21 audio/x-flac
4447      20 audio/x-mpegurl
4448      19 audio/x-mpeg
4449      18 video/x-ms-asf
4450      18 video/mpeg
4451      18 audio/x-scpls
4452      18 application/x-ogg
4453      17 audio/x-musepack
4454      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4455      16 video/x-msvideo
4456 </pre>
4457
4458 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
4459 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
4460 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
4461 issues.</p>
4462
4463 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
4464 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
4465
4466       </div>
4467       <div class="tags">
4468
4469
4470         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>.
4471
4472
4473       </div>
4474     </div>
4475     <div class="padding"></div>
4476
4477     <div class="entry">
4478       <div class="title">
4479         <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>
4480       </div>
4481       <div class="date">
4482         15th January 2013
4483       </div>
4484       <div class="body">
4485         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
4486 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
4487 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
4488 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
4489 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
4490 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
4491 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
4492 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
4493 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
4494 packages.</p>
4495
4496 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
4497 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
4498 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
4499 modalias.</p>
4500
4501 <p><blockquote>
4502 Package: package-name
4503 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
4504 </blockquote></p>
4505
4506 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
4507 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
4508
4509 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
4510 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
4511
4512 <p><blockquote>
4513 Package: cheese
4514 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
4515 </blockquote></p>
4516
4517 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
4518 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
4519
4520 <p><blockquote>
4521 Package: pcmciautils
4522 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
4523 </blockquote></p>
4524
4525 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
4526 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
4527
4528 <p><blockquote>
4529 Package: colorhug-client
4530 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
4531 </blockquote></p>
4532
4533 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
4534 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
4535 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
4536
4537 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
4538 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
4539 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
4540 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
4541 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
4542 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
4543 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
4544 Raring.</p>
4545
4546 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
4547 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
4548 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
4549 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
4550 try the
4551 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
4552 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
4553 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
4554 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
4555
4556 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
4557 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
4558
4559 <p><blockquote>
4560 % ./hw-support-lookup
4561 <br>yubikey-personalization
4562 <br>%
4563 </blockquote></p>
4564
4565 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
4566 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
4567
4568 <p><blockquote>
4569 % ./hw-support-lookup
4570 <br>pcmciautils
4571 <br>%
4572 </blockquote></p>
4573
4574 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
4575 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
4576 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
4577
4578 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
4579 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
4580 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
4581 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
4582 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
4583 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
4584 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
4585 see if it work.</p>
4586
4587 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4588 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4589 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4590 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4591
4592       </div>
4593       <div class="tags">
4594
4595
4596         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>.
4597
4598
4599       </div>
4600     </div>
4601     <div class="padding"></div>
4602
4603     <div class="entry">
4604       <div class="title">
4605         <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>
4606       </div>
4607       <div class="date">
4608         14th January 2013
4609       </div>
4610       <div class="body">
4611         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
4612 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
4613 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
4614 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
4615 in
4616 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4617 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
4618
4619 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
4620
4621 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
4622 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
4623 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
4624 &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;,
4625 &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
4626 &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;.
4627
4628 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
4629 this shell script:</p>
4630
4631 <pre>
4632 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
4633 </pre>
4634
4635 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
4636 using modinfo:</p>
4637
4638 <pre>
4639 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
4640 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
4641 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
4642 %
4643 </pre>
4644
4645 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
4646
4647 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
4648 Bridge memory controller:</p>
4649
4650 <p><blockquote>
4651 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
4652 </blockquote></p>
4653
4654 <p>This represent these values:</p>
4655
4656 <pre>
4657  v   00008086  (vendor)
4658  d   00002770  (device)
4659  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
4660  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
4661  bc  06        (bus class)
4662  sc  00        (bus subclass)
4663  i   00        (interface)
4664 </pre>
4665
4666 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
4667 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
4668 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
4669 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
4670
4671 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
4672 means.</p>
4673
4674 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
4675
4676 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
4677 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
4678
4679 <p><blockquote>
4680 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
4681 </blockquote></p>
4682
4683 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
4684
4685 <pre>
4686  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
4687  p    0001  (device product)
4688  d    0206  (bcddevice)
4689  dc     09  (device class)
4690  dsc    00  (device subclass)
4691  dp     00  (device protocol)
4692  ic     09  (interface class)
4693  isc    00  (interface subclass)
4694  ip     00  (interface protocol)
4695 </pre>
4696
4697 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
4698 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
4699 these alias entries show up:</p>
4700
4701 <p><blockquote>
4702 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
4703 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
4704 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
4705 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
4706 </blockquote></p>
4707
4708 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
4709 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
4710 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
4711
4712 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
4713
4714 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
4715 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
4716
4717 <p><blockquote>
4718 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4719 </blockquote></p>
4720
4721 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
4722
4723 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
4724
4725 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
4726 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
4727 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
4728
4729 <p><blockquote>
4730 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
4731 </blockquote></p>
4732
4733 <p>The values present are</p>
4734
4735 <pre>
4736  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
4737  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
4738  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
4739  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
4740  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
4741  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
4742  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
4743  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
4744  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
4745  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
4746  ct   10             (chassis type)
4747  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
4748 </pre>
4749
4750 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
4751 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
4752
4753 <pre>
4754   3 Desktop
4755   4 Low Profile Desktop
4756   5 Pizza Box
4757   6 Mini Tower
4758   7 Tower
4759   8 Portable
4760   9 Laptop
4761  10 Notebook
4762  11 Hand Held
4763  12 Docking Station
4764  13 All In One
4765  14 Sub Notebook
4766  15 Space-saving
4767  16 Lunch Box
4768  17 Main Server Chassis
4769  18 Expansion Chassis
4770  19 Sub Chassis
4771  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
4772  21 Peripheral Chassis
4773  22 RAID Chassis
4774  23 Rack Mount Chassis
4775  24 Sealed-case PC
4776  25 Multi-system
4777  26 CompactPCI
4778  27 AdvancedTCA
4779  28 Blade
4780  29 Blade Enclosing
4781 </pre>
4782
4783 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
4784 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
4785 claim it is a desktop.</p>
4786
4787 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
4788
4789 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
4790 test machine:</p>
4791
4792 <p><blockquote>
4793 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
4794 </blockquote></p>
4795
4796 <p>The values present are</p>
4797
4798 <pre>
4799   ty  01  (type)
4800   pr  00  (prototype)
4801   id  00  (id)
4802   ex  00  (extra)
4803 </pre>
4804
4805 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
4806 the valid values are.</p>
4807
4808 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
4809
4810 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
4811 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
4812 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
4813 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
4814 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
4815 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
4816 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
4817
4818 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
4819
4820 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
4821 one can use the following shell script:</p>
4822
4823 <pre>
4824   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
4825     echo "$id" ; \
4826     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
4827   done
4828 </pre>
4829
4830 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
4831 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
4832
4833 <pre>
4834   acpi:ACPI0003:
4835     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
4836   acpi:device:
4837   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
4838   acpi:IBM0068:
4839     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
4840     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
4841     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
4842     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
4843   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4844     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
4845     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
4846     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
4847   [...]
4848 </pre>
4849
4850 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4851 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4852 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4853 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4854
4855 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
4856 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
4857 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
4858
4859       </div>
4860       <div class="tags">
4861
4862
4863         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>.
4864
4865
4866       </div>
4867     </div>
4868     <div class="padding"></div>
4869
4870     <div class="entry">
4871       <div class="title">
4872         <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>
4873       </div>
4874       <div class="date">
4875         10th January 2013
4876       </div>
4877       <div class="body">
4878         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
4879 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
4880 Launcher and updated the Debian package
4881 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
4882 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
4883 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
4884 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
4885 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
4886 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
4887 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
4888 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
4889 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
4890 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
4891 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
4892 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
4893 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
4894 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
4895 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
4896
4897       </div>
4898       <div class="tags">
4899
4900
4901         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4902
4903
4904       </div>
4905     </div>
4906     <div class="padding"></div>
4907
4908     <div class="entry">
4909       <div class="title">
4910         <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>
4911       </div>
4912       <div class="date">
4913          9th January 2013
4914       </div>
4915       <div class="body">
4916         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
4917 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
4918 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
4919 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
4920 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
4921 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
4922 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
4923 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
4924 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
4925 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
4926 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
4927
4928 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
4929 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
4930 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
4931 simple:
4932
4933 <ul>
4934
4935 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
4936   starting when a user log in.</li>
4937
4938 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
4939   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
4940
4941 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
4942   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
4943   packages.</li>
4944
4945 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
4946   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
4947
4948 </ul>
4949
4950 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
4951 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
4952 discover database to find packages and
4953 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
4954 packages.</p>
4955
4956 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
4957 draft package is now checked into
4958 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4959 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
4960 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
4961 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
4962 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
4963 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
4964 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
4965 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
4966 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
4967 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
4968 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
4969 because of the freeze).</p>
4970
4971 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
4972 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
4973 inserted):</p>
4974
4975 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
4976
4977 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
4978 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
4979 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
4980
4981 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
4982 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
4983 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
4984 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
4985 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
4986 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
4987 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
4988
4989 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
4990 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
4991 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
4992 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
4993 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
4994 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
4995 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
4996 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
4997 not be installed?</p>
4998
4999 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
5000 please send me an email. :)</p>
5001
5002       </div>
5003       <div class="tags">
5004
5005
5006         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>.
5007
5008
5009       </div>
5010     </div>
5011     <div class="padding"></div>
5012
5013     <div class="entry">
5014       <div class="title">
5015         <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>
5016       </div>
5017       <div class="date">
5018          2nd January 2013
5019       </div>
5020       <div class="body">
5021         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
5022 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
5023 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
5024 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
5025 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
5026 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
5027 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
5028 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
5029 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
5030 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
5031
5032 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
5033 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
5034 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
5035
5036       </div>
5037       <div class="tags">
5038
5039
5040         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>.
5041
5042
5043       </div>
5044     </div>
5045     <div class="padding"></div>
5046
5047     <div class="entry">
5048       <div class="title">
5049         <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>
5050       </div>
5051       <div class="date">
5052         25th December 2012
5053       </div>
5054       <div class="body">
5055         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
5056 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
5057
5058 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
5059 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
5060 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
5061 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
5062 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
5063 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
5064 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
5065 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
5066 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
5067 name.</p>
5068
5069 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
5070 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
5071 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
5072
5073 <blockquote><pre>
5074 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
5075 cd bitcoin
5076 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
5077 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
5078 </pre></blockquote>
5079
5080 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
5081 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
5082 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
5083 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
5084 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
5085 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
5086 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
5087 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
5088 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
5089
5090 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5091 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5092 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5093
5094       </div>
5095       <div class="tags">
5096
5097
5098         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>.
5099
5100
5101       </div>
5102     </div>
5103     <div class="padding"></div>
5104
5105     <div class="entry">
5106       <div class="title">
5107         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
5108       </div>
5109       <div class="date">
5110         21st December 2012
5111       </div>
5112       <div class="body">
5113         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
5114 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
5115 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
5116 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
5117 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
5118 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
5119 is now maintained by a
5120 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
5121 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
5122 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
5123 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
5124 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
5125 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
5126 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
5127 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
5128 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
5129 Corallo in a
5130 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
5131 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
5132 Debian package.</p>
5133
5134 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
5135 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
5136 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
5137 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
5138 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
5139 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
5140 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
5141 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
5142 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
5143 new version to unstable.
5144
5145 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
5146 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
5147 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
5148 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
5149 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
5150 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
5151 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
5152 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
5153 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
5154 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
5155 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
5156 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
5157 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
5158 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
5159 have not tested them.</p>
5160
5161 <p>My
5162 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
5163 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
5164 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
5165 years ago, as can be
5166 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
5167 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
5168 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
5169 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
5170 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
5171 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
5172 the same address as last time,
5173 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5174
5175       </div>
5176       <div class="tags">
5177
5178
5179         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>.
5180
5181
5182       </div>
5183     </div>
5184     <div class="padding"></div>
5185
5186     <div class="entry">
5187       <div class="title">
5188         <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>
5189       </div>
5190       <div class="date">
5191          7th September 2012
5192       </div>
5193       <div class="body">
5194         <p>As I
5195 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
5196 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
5197 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
5198 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
5199 repository for the project</a>.</p>
5200
5201 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
5202 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
5203 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
5204 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
5205
5206 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
5207 PostScript formats at
5208 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
5209 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
5210
5211       </div>
5212       <div class="tags">
5213
5214
5215         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>.
5216
5217
5218       </div>
5219     </div>
5220     <div class="padding"></div>
5221
5222     <div class="entry">
5223       <div class="title">
5224         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
5225       </div>
5226       <div class="date">
5227         16th August 2012
5228       </div>
5229       <div class="body">
5230         <p>I dag fyller
5231 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
5232 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
5233 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
5234
5235       </div>
5236       <div class="tags">
5237
5238
5239         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>.
5240
5241
5242       </div>
5243     </div>
5244     <div class="padding"></div>
5245
5246     <div class="entry">
5247       <div class="title">
5248         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
5249       </div>
5250       <div class="date">
5251         24th June 2012
5252       </div>
5253       <div class="body">
5254         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
5255 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
5256 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
5257 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
5258 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
5259 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
5260 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
5261 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
5262 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
5263 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
5264 missing in my book.</p>
5265
5266 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
5267 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
5268 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
5269 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
5270 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
5271 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
5272 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
5273
5274       </div>
5275       <div class="tags">
5276
5277
5278         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>.
5279
5280
5281       </div>
5282     </div>
5283     <div class="padding"></div>
5284
5285     <div class="entry">
5286       <div class="title">
5287         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
5288       </div>
5289       <div class="date">
5290         21st November 2011
5291       </div>
5292       <div class="body">
5293         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
5294 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
5295 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
5296 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
5297 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
5298 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
5299 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
5300 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
5301 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
5302 the tools to do so.</p>
5303
5304 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
5305 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
5306 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
5307 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
5308
5309 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
5310 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
5311 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
5312 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
5313 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
5314 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
5315 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
5316 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
5317
5318 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
5319 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
5320 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
5321
5322 <p><pre>
5323 #!/usr/bin/perl
5324 use strict;
5325 use warnings;
5326 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
5327 BEGIN {
5328     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
5329     my %rhelmodules = (
5330         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
5331         );
5332     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
5333         eval "use $module;";
5334         if ($@) {
5335             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
5336             system("yum install -y $pkg");
5337             eval "use $module;";
5338         }
5339     }
5340 }
5341 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
5342
5343 upgrade_dell();
5344
5345 exit 0;
5346
5347 sub run_firmware_script {
5348     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
5349     unless ($script) {
5350         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
5351         exit 1
5352     }
5353     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
5354
5355     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
5356         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
5357     } else {
5358         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
5359     }
5360 }
5361
5362 sub run_firmware_scripts {
5363     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
5364     # Run firmware packages
5365     for my $dir (@dirs) {
5366         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
5367         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
5368         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
5369             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
5370             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
5371         }
5372         closedir $dh;
5373     }
5374 }
5375
5376 sub download {
5377     my $url = shift;
5378     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
5379     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
5380 }
5381
5382 sub upgrade_dell {
5383     my @dirs;
5384     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5385     chomp $product;
5386
5387     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
5388
5389         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
5390         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
5391
5392         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
5393             CLEANUP => 1
5394             );
5395         chdir($tmpdir);
5396         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
5397         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
5398         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
5399         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
5400         my $fwopts = "-q";
5401         if (@paths) {
5402             for my $url (@paths) {
5403                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
5404             }
5405             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
5406         } else {
5407             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5408             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5409         }
5410         chdir('/');
5411     } else {
5412         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5413         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5414     }
5415 }
5416
5417 sub fetch_dell_fw {
5418     my $path = shift;
5419     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
5420     download($url);
5421 }
5422
5423 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
5424 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
5425 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
5426 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
5427     my $filename = shift;
5428
5429     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5430     chomp $product;
5431     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
5432
5433     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
5434
5435     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
5436     my @paths;
5437     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
5438         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
5439         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
5440         my $oscode;
5441         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
5442             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
5443         } else {
5444             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
5445         }
5446         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
5447         {
5448             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
5449         }
5450     }
5451     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
5452         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
5453
5454         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
5455         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
5456
5457         my $cpath = $component->{path};
5458         for my $path (@paths) {
5459             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
5460                 push(@paths, $cpath);
5461             }
5462         }
5463     }
5464     return @paths;
5465 }
5466 </pre>
5467
5468 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
5469 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
5470 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
5471 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
5472 outdated.</p>
5473
5474       </div>
5475       <div class="tags">
5476
5477
5478         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>.
5479
5480
5481       </div>
5482     </div>
5483     <div class="padding"></div>
5484
5485     <div class="entry">
5486       <div class="title">
5487         <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>
5488       </div>
5489       <div class="date">
5490          4th August 2011
5491       </div>
5492       <div class="body">
5493         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
5494 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
5495 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
5496 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
5497 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
5498 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
5499 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
5500 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
5501 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
5502
5503 <p><blockquote>
5504 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
5505 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
5506 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
5507 </blockquote></p>
5508
5509 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
5510 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
5511 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
5512 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
5513 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
5514 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
5515 hard to explain.</p>
5516
5517 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
5518 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
5519 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
5520 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
5521 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
5522 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
5523 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
5524 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
5525 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
5526 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
5527 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
5528 mode).</p>
5529
5530 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
5531 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
5532 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
5533 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
5534 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
5535 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
5536 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
5537 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
5538 after visiting single user mode.</p>
5539
5540 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
5541 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
5542 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
5543 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
5544 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
5545 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
5546 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
5547 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
5548
5549 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
5550 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
5551 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
5552
5553       </div>
5554       <div class="tags">
5555
5556
5557         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>.
5558
5559
5560       </div>
5561     </div>
5562     <div class="padding"></div>
5563
5564     <div class="entry">
5565       <div class="title">
5566         <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>
5567       </div>
5568       <div class="date">
5569         30th July 2011
5570       </div>
5571       <div class="body">
5572         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
5573 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
5574 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
5575 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
5576 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
5577 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
5578 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
5579 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
5580 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
5581 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
5582 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
5583 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
5584 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
5585
5586 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
5587 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
5588 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
5589 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
5590 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
5591 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
5592 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
5593 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
5594 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
5595
5596 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
5597 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
5598 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
5599 is presented.</p>
5600
5601 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
5602 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
5603 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
5604 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
5605 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
5606 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
5607 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
5608 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
5609 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
5610 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
5611 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
5612 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
5613 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
5614 find time to push this forward.</p>
5615
5616       </div>
5617       <div class="tags">
5618
5619
5620         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>.
5621
5622
5623       </div>
5624     </div>
5625     <div class="padding"></div>
5626
5627     <div class="entry">
5628       <div class="title">
5629         <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>
5630       </div>
5631       <div class="date">
5632         29th July 2011
5633       </div>
5634       <div class="body">
5635         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
5636 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
5637 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
5638 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
5639 issues.</p>
5640
5641 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
5642 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
5643 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
5644
5645 <ol>
5646
5647 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
5648 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
5649 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
5650 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
5651 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
5652 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
5653 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
5654 Debian.</li>
5655
5656 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
5657 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
5658 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
5659 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
5660 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
5661 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
5662 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
5663 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
5664 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
5665 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
5666 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
5667 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
5668 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
5669
5670 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
5671 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
5672 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
5673 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
5674 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
5675 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
5676 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
5677 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
5678 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
5679 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
5680
5681 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
5682 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
5683 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
5684 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
5685 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
5686 latter behaviour.</li>
5687
5688 </ol>
5689
5690 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
5691 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
5692 it do not matter much.</p>
5693
5694 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
5695 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
5696 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
5697
5698       </div>
5699       <div class="tags">
5700
5701
5702         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/h264">h264</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>.
5703
5704
5705       </div>
5706     </div>
5707     <div class="padding"></div>
5708
5709     <div class="entry">
5710       <div class="title">
5711         <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>
5712       </div>
5713       <div class="date">
5714         26th July 2011
5715       </div>
5716       <div class="body">
5717         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
5718 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
5719 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
5720 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
5721 security support for a few years.</p>
5722
5723 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
5724 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
5725 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
5726 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
5727 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
5728 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
5729 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
5730 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
5731 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
5732 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
5733 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
5734 easier in the future.</p>
5735
5736 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
5737 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
5738 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
5739 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
5740 do not have time for.</p>
5741
5742       </div>
5743       <div class="tags">
5744
5745
5746         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>.
5747
5748
5749       </div>
5750     </div>
5751     <div class="padding"></div>
5752
5753     <div class="entry">
5754       <div class="title">
5755         <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>
5756       </div>
5757       <div class="date">
5758          3rd April 2011
5759       </div>
5760       <div class="body">
5761         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
5762 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
5763 update in English.</p>
5764
5765 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
5766 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
5767 of the British service
5768 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
5769 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
5770 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
5771 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
5772 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
5773 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
5774 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
5775 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
5776 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
5777 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
5778 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
5779 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
5780 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
5781
5782 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
5783 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
5784 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
5785 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
5786 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
5787 public infrastructure.</p>
5788
5789 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
5790 such service?</p>
5791
5792       </div>
5793       <div class="tags">
5794
5795
5796         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>.
5797
5798
5799       </div>
5800     </div>
5801     <div class="padding"></div>
5802
5803     <div class="entry">
5804       <div class="title">
5805         <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>
5806       </div>
5807       <div class="date">
5808         28th January 2011
5809       </div>
5810       <div class="body">
5811         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
5812 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
5813 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
5814 available on the Internet, and check our locally
5815 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
5816 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
5817 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
5818 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
5819 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
5820 out which security holes were present in our free software
5821 collection.</p>
5822
5823 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
5824 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
5825 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
5826 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
5827 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
5828 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
5829 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
5830 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
5831 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
5832 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
5833 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
5834 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
5835 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
5836 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
5837 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
5838 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
5839
5840 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
5841 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
5842 check out, one could look up
5843 <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
5844 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
5845 The most recent one is
5846 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
5847 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
5848 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
5849
5850 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
5851 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
5852 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
5853 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
5854 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
5855 security issues out.</p>
5856
5857 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
5858 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
5859 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
5860 RHEL is providing
5861 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
5862 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
5863 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
5864
5865 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
5866 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
5867 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
5868 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
5869 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
5870 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
5871 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
5872 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
5873 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
5874 established soon.</p>
5875
5876 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
5877 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
5878 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
5879 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
5880 for their packages.</p>
5881
5882       </div>
5883       <div class="tags">
5884
5885
5886         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>.
5887
5888
5889       </div>
5890     </div>
5891     <div class="padding"></div>
5892
5893     <div class="entry">
5894       <div class="title">
5895         <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>
5896       </div>
5897       <div class="date">
5898         23rd January 2011
5899       </div>
5900       <div class="body">
5901         <p>In the
5902 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
5903 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
5904 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
5905 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
5906 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
5907 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
5908 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
5909 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
5910 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
5911 one of my machines like this:</p>
5912
5913 <pre>
5914 loaded modules:
5915 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
5916 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
5917 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
5918 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
5919 10de:03ec pata_amd
5920 10de:03f6 sata_nv
5921 1022:1103 k8temp
5922 109e:036e bttv
5923 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
5924 11ab:4364 sky2
5925 </pre>
5926
5927 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
5928 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
5929
5930 <pre>
5931 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
5932     echo loaded pci modules:
5933     (
5934         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
5935         for address in * ; do
5936             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5937                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5938                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5939                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5940                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
5941                     echo "$id $module"
5942                 fi
5943             fi
5944         done
5945     )
5946     echo
5947 fi
5948 </pre>
5949
5950 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
5951 mappings:</p>
5952
5953 <pre>
5954 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
5955     echo loaded usb modules:
5956     (
5957         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
5958         for address in * ; do
5959             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5960                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5961                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5962                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5963                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
5964                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
5965                         echo "$id $module"
5966                     fi
5967                 fi
5968             fi
5969         done
5970     )
5971     echo
5972 fi
5973 </pre>
5974
5975 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
5976 well.</p>
5977
5978       </div>
5979       <div class="tags">
5980
5981
5982         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>.
5983
5984
5985       </div>
5986     </div>
5987     <div class="padding"></div>
5988
5989     <div class="entry">
5990       <div class="title">
5991         <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>
5992       </div>
5993       <div class="date">
5994         22nd December 2010
5995       </div>
5996       <div class="body">
5997         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
5998 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
5999 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
6000 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
6001 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
6002 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
6003 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
6004 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
6005 university.</p>
6006
6007 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
6008 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
6009 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
6010 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
6011 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
6012 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
6013 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
6014 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
6015
6016 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
6017 I perform on a new model.</p>
6018
6019 <ul>
6020
6021 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
6022 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
6023 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
6024
6025 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
6026 installation, X.org is working.</li>
6027
6028 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
6029 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
6030 reported by the program.</li>
6031
6032 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
6033 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
6034 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
6035 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
6036 normally test this by playing
6037 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
6038 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
6039
6040 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
6041 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
6042
6043 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
6044 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
6045
6046 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
6047 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
6048
6049 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
6050 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
6051 few.</li>
6052
6053 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
6054 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
6055 notice this.</li>
6056
6057 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
6058 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
6059 resume.</li>
6060
6061 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
6062 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
6063 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
6064 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
6065 not.</li>
6066
6067 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
6068 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
6069 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
6070 existence.</li>
6071
6072 </ul>
6073
6074 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
6075 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
6076 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
6077 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
6078 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
6079 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
6080 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
6081 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
6082
6083       </div>
6084       <div class="tags">
6085
6086
6087         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>.
6088
6089
6090       </div>
6091     </div>
6092     <div class="padding"></div>
6093
6094     <div class="entry">
6095       <div class="title">
6096         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
6097       </div>
6098       <div class="date">
6099         11th December 2010
6100       </div>
6101       <div class="body">
6102         <p>As I continue to explore
6103 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
6104 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
6105 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
6106
6107 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
6108 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
6109 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
6110 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
6111 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
6112 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
6113 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
6114 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
6115 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
6116 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
6117 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
6118 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
6119 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
6120 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
6121 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
6122 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
6123 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
6124 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
6125 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
6126 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
6127
6128 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
6129 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
6130 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
6131 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
6132 If the Skolelinux foundation
6133 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
6134 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
6135 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
6136 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
6137 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
6138 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
6139 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
6140 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
6141
6142 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
6143 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
6144 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
6145 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
6146 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
6147 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
6148 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
6149 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
6150 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
6151 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
6152 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
6153 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
6154 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
6155 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
6156 currencies.</p>
6157
6158 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
6159 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
6160 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
6161 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
6162 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
6163 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
6164 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
6165 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
6166 BitCoins.  Check out
6167 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
6168 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
6169 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
6170 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
6171 yet.</p>
6172
6173 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
6174 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
6175 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
6176 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
6177 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
6178
6179       </div>
6180       <div class="tags">
6181
6182
6183         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>.
6184
6185
6186       </div>
6187     </div>
6188     <div class="padding"></div>
6189
6190     <div class="entry">
6191       <div class="title">
6192         <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>
6193       </div>
6194       <div class="date">
6195         10th December 2010
6196       </div>
6197       <div class="body">
6198         <p>With this weeks lawless
6199 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
6200 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
6201 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
6202 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
6203 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
6204 A blog post from
6205 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
6206 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
6207 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
6208 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
6209 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
6210 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
6211 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
6212
6213 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
6214 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
6215 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
6216 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
6217 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
6218 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
6219 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
6220 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
6221 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
6222 Debian</a> soon.</p>
6223
6224 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
6225 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
6226 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
6227 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
6228 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
6229 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
6230 you can even get
6231 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
6232 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
6233 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
6234 on the current exchange rates.</p>
6235
6236 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
6237 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
6238 donations to the address
6239 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
6240
6241       </div>
6242       <div class="tags">
6243
6244
6245         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>.
6246
6247
6248       </div>
6249     </div>
6250     <div class="padding"></div>
6251
6252     <div class="entry">
6253       <div class="title">
6254         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
6255       </div>
6256       <div class="date">
6257         27th November 2010
6258       </div>
6259       <div class="body">
6260         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
6261 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
6262 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
6263 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
6264 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
6265 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
6266 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
6267 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
6268
6269 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
6270 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6271 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
6272 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
6273 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
6274 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
6275 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
6276 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
6277 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
6278 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
6279 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
6280
6281 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
6282 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
6283 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
6284 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
6285 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
6286 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
6287 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
6288 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
6289 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
6290 what is going on.</p>
6291
6292       </div>
6293       <div class="tags">
6294
6295
6296         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>.
6297
6298
6299       </div>
6300     </div>
6301     <div class="padding"></div>
6302
6303     <div class="entry">
6304       <div class="title">
6305         <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>
6306       </div>
6307       <div class="date">
6308         22nd November 2010
6309       </div>
6310       <div class="body">
6311         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
6312 upgrade testing of the
6313 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6314 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
6315 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
6316 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
6317
6318 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6319
6320 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6321
6322 <blockquote><p>
6323   apache2.2-bin
6324   aptdaemon
6325   baobab
6326   binfmt-support
6327   browser-plugin-gnash
6328   cheese-common
6329   cli-common
6330   cups-pk-helper
6331   dmz-cursor-theme
6332   empathy
6333   empathy-common
6334   freedesktop-sound-theme
6335   freeglut3
6336   gconf-defaults-service
6337   gdm-themes
6338   gedit-plugins
6339   geoclue
6340   geoclue-hostip
6341   geoclue-localnet
6342   geoclue-manual
6343   geoclue-yahoo
6344   gnash
6345   gnash-common
6346   gnome
6347   gnome-backgrounds
6348   gnome-cards-data
6349   gnome-codec-install
6350   gnome-core
6351   gnome-desktop-environment
6352   gnome-disk-utility
6353   gnome-screenshot
6354   gnome-search-tool
6355   gnome-session-canberra
6356   gnome-system-log
6357   gnome-themes-extras
6358   gnome-themes-more
6359   gnome-user-share
6360   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6361   gstreamer0.10-tools
6362   gtk2-engines
6363   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6364   gtk2-engines-smooth
6365   hamster-applet
6366   libapache2-mod-dnssd
6367   libapr1
6368   libaprutil1
6369   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
6370   libaprutil1-ldap
6371   libart2.0-cil
6372   libboost-date-time1.42.0
6373   libboost-python1.42.0
6374   libboost-thread1.42.0
6375   libchamplain-0.4-0
6376   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
6377   libcheese-gtk18
6378   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6379   libcryptui0
6380   libdiscid0
6381   libelf1
6382   libepc-1.0-2
6383   libepc-common
6384   libepc-ui-1.0-2
6385   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6386   libfreerdp0
6387   libgconf2.0-cil
6388   libgdata-common
6389   libgdata7
6390   libgdu-gtk0
6391   libgee2
6392   libgeoclue0
6393   libgexiv2-0
6394   libgif4
6395   libglade2.0-cil
6396   libglib2.0-cil
6397   libgmime2.4-cil
6398   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6399   libgnome2.24-cil
6400   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
6401   libgpod-common
6402   libgpod4
6403   libgtk2.0-cil
6404   libgtkglext1
6405   libgtksourceview2.0-common
6406   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6407   libmono-addins0.2-cil
6408   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
6409   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6410   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
6411   libmono-posix2.0-cil
6412   libmono-security2.0-cil
6413   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6414   libmono-system2.0-cil
6415   libmtp8
6416   libmusicbrainz3-6
6417   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
6418   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
6419   libopal3.6.8
6420   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
6421   libpt2.6.7
6422   libpython2.6
6423   librpm1
6424   librpmio1
6425   libsdl1.2debian
6426   libsrtp0
6427   libssh-4
6428   libtelepathy-farsight0
6429   libtelepathy-glib0
6430   libtidy-0.99-0
6431   media-player-info
6432   mesa-utils
6433   mono-2.0-gac
6434   mono-gac
6435   mono-runtime
6436   nautilus-sendto
6437   nautilus-sendto-empathy
6438   p7zip-full
6439   pkg-config
6440   python-aptdaemon
6441   python-aptdaemon-gtk
6442   python-axiom
6443   python-beautifulsoup
6444   python-bugbuddy
6445   python-clientform
6446   python-coherence
6447   python-configobj
6448   python-crypto
6449   python-cupshelpers
6450   python-elementtree
6451   python-epsilon
6452   python-evolution
6453   python-feedparser
6454   python-gdata
6455   python-gdbm
6456   python-gst0.10
6457   python-gtkglext1
6458   python-gtksourceview2
6459   python-httplib2
6460   python-louie
6461   python-mako
6462   python-markupsafe
6463   python-mechanize
6464   python-nevow
6465   python-notify
6466   python-opengl
6467   python-openssl
6468   python-pam
6469   python-pkg-resources
6470   python-pyasn1
6471   python-pysqlite2
6472   python-rdflib
6473   python-serial
6474   python-tagpy
6475   python-twisted-bin
6476   python-twisted-conch
6477   python-twisted-core
6478   python-twisted-web
6479   python-utidylib
6480   python-webkit
6481   python-xdg
6482   python-zope.interface
6483   remmina
6484   remmina-plugin-data
6485   remmina-plugin-rdp
6486   remmina-plugin-vnc
6487   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6488   rhythmbox-plugins
6489   rpm-common
6490   rpm2cpio
6491   seahorse-plugins
6492   shotwell
6493   software-center
6494   system-config-printer-udev
6495   telepathy-gabble
6496   telepathy-mission-control-5
6497   telepathy-salut
6498   tomboy
6499   totem
6500   totem-coherence
6501   totem-mozilla
6502   totem-plugins
6503   transmission-common
6504   xdg-user-dirs
6505   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
6506   xserver-xephyr
6507 </p></blockquote>
6508
6509 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6510
6511 <blockquote><p>
6512   cheese
6513   ekiga
6514   eog
6515   epiphany-extensions
6516   evolution-exchange
6517   fast-user-switch-applet
6518   file-roller
6519   gcalctool
6520   gconf-editor
6521   gdm
6522   gedit
6523   gedit-common
6524   gnome-games
6525   gnome-games-data
6526   gnome-nettool
6527   gnome-system-tools
6528   gnome-themes
6529   gnuchess
6530   gucharmap
6531   guile-1.8-libs
6532   libavahi-ui0
6533   libdmx1
6534   libgalago3
6535   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6536   libgtksourceview2.0-0
6537   liblircclient0
6538   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
6539   libspeexdsp1
6540   libsvga1
6541   rhythmbox
6542   seahorse
6543   sound-juicer
6544   system-config-printer
6545   totem-common
6546   transmission-gtk
6547   vinagre
6548   vino
6549 </p></blockquote>
6550
6551 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6552
6553 <blockquote><p>
6554   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6555 </p></blockquote>
6556
6557 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6558
6559 <blockquote><p>
6560 [nothing]
6561 </p></blockquote>
6562
6563 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6564
6565 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6566
6567 <blockquote><p>
6568   ksmserver
6569 </p></blockquote>
6570
6571 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6572
6573 <blockquote><p>
6574   kwin
6575   network-manager-kde
6576 </p></blockquote>
6577
6578 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6579
6580 <blockquote><p>
6581   arts
6582   dolphin
6583   freespacenotifier
6584   google-gadgets-gst
6585   google-gadgets-xul
6586   kappfinder
6587   kcalc
6588   kcharselect
6589   kde-core
6590   kde-plasma-desktop
6591   kde-standard
6592   kde-window-manager
6593   kdeartwork
6594   kdeartwork-emoticons
6595   kdeartwork-style
6596   kdeartwork-theme-icon
6597   kdebase
6598   kdebase-apps
6599   kdebase-workspace
6600   kdebase-workspace-bin
6601   kdebase-workspace-data
6602   kdeeject
6603   kdelibs
6604   kdeplasma-addons
6605   kdeutils
6606   kdewallpapers
6607   kdf
6608   kfloppy
6609   kgpg
6610   khelpcenter4
6611   kinfocenter
6612   konq-plugins-l10n
6613   konqueror-nsplugins
6614   kscreensaver
6615   kscreensaver-xsavers
6616   ktimer
6617   kwrite
6618   libgle3
6619   libkde4-ruby1.8
6620   libkonq5
6621   libkonq5-templates
6622   libnetpbm10
6623   libplasma-ruby
6624   libplasma-ruby1.8
6625   libqt4-ruby1.8
6626   marble-data
6627   marble-plugins
6628   netpbm
6629   nuvola-icon-theme
6630   plasma-dataengines-workspace
6631   plasma-desktop
6632   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
6633   plasma-runners-addons
6634   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
6635   plasma-scriptengine-python
6636   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
6637   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
6638   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
6639   plasma-scriptengines
6640   plasma-wallpapers-addons
6641   plasma-widget-folderview
6642   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6643   ruby
6644   sweeper
6645   update-notifier-kde
6646   xscreensaver-data-extra
6647   xscreensaver-gl
6648   xscreensaver-gl-extra
6649   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6650 </p></blockquote>
6651
6652 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6653
6654 <blockquote><p>
6655   ark
6656   google-gadgets-common
6657   google-gadgets-qt
6658   htdig
6659   kate
6660   kdebase-bin
6661   kdebase-data
6662   kdepasswd
6663   kfind
6664   klipper
6665   konq-plugins
6666   konqueror
6667   ksysguard
6668   ksysguardd
6669   libarchive1
6670   libcln6
6671   libeet1
6672   libeina-svn-06
6673   libggadget-1.0-0b
6674   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
6675   libgps19
6676   libkdecorations4
6677   libkephal4
6678   libkonq4
6679   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
6680   libkscreensaver5
6681   libksgrd4
6682   libksignalplotter4
6683   libkunitconversion4
6684   libkwineffects1a
6685   libmarblewidget4
6686   libntrack-qt4-1
6687   libntrack0
6688   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
6689   libplasmaclock4a
6690   libplasmagenericshell4
6691   libprocesscore4a
6692   libprocessui4a
6693   libqalculate5
6694   libqedje0a
6695   libqtruby4shared2
6696   libqzion0a
6697   libruby1.8
6698   libscim8c2a
6699   libsmokekdecore4-3
6700   libsmokekdeui4-3
6701   libsmokekfile3
6702   libsmokekhtml3
6703   libsmokekio3
6704   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
6705   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
6706   libsmokekparts3
6707   libsmokektexteditor3
6708   libsmokekutils3
6709   libsmokenepomuk3
6710   libsmokephonon3
6711   libsmokeplasma3
6712   libsmokeqtcore4-3
6713   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
6714   libsmokeqtgui4-3
6715   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
6716   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
6717   libsmokeqtscript4-3
6718   libsmokeqtsql4-3
6719   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
6720   libsmokeqttest4-3
6721   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
6722   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
6723   libsmokeqtxml4-3
6724   libsmokesolid3
6725   libsmokesoprano3
6726   libtaskmanager4a
6727   libtidy-0.99-0
6728   libweather-ion4a
6729   libxklavier16
6730   libxxf86misc1
6731   okteta
6732   oxygencursors
6733   plasma-dataengines-addons
6734   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
6735   plasma-widget-lancelot
6736   plasma-widgets-addons
6737   plasma-widgets-workspace
6738   polkit-kde-1
6739   ruby1.8
6740   systemsettings
6741   update-notifier-common
6742 </p></blockquote>
6743
6744 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
6745 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
6746 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
6747 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
6748
6749       </div>
6750       <div class="tags">
6751
6752
6753         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>.
6754
6755
6756       </div>
6757     </div>
6758     <div class="padding"></div>
6759
6760     <div class="entry">
6761       <div class="title">
6762         <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>
6763       </div>
6764       <div class="date">
6765         22nd November 2010
6766       </div>
6767       <div class="body">
6768         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
6769 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
6770 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
6771 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
6772 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
6773 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
6774 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
6775 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
6776 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
6777
6778 <p>I found
6779 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
6780 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
6781 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
6782 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
6783 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
6784 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
6785
6786 <pre>
6787 #!/bin/sh
6788
6789 # Based on
6790 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
6791
6792 set -e
6793 set -x
6794
6795 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
6796     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
6797     exit 1
6798 else
6799     host="$1"
6800 fi
6801
6802 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
6803     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
6804     exit 1
6805 fi
6806
6807 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
6808 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6809 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
6810 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
6811
6812 img=$host.img
6813 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
6814 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
6815
6816 parted $img mklabel msdos
6817 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
6818 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
6819 parted $img set 1 boot on
6820
6821 modprobe dm-mod
6822 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
6823 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
6824
6825 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
6826 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
6827 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
6828
6829 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
6830 losetup -d /dev/loop0
6831 </pre>
6832
6833 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
6834 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
6835
6836 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
6837 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
6838 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
6839 seem to work just fine.</p>
6840
6841       </div>
6842       <div class="tags">
6843
6844
6845         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>.
6846
6847
6848       </div>
6849     </div>
6850     <div class="padding"></div>
6851
6852     <div class="entry">
6853       <div class="title">
6854         <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>
6855       </div>
6856       <div class="date">
6857         20th November 2010
6858       </div>
6859       <div class="body">
6860         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
6861 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6862 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
6863 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
6864
6865 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
6866 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
6867 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
6868
6869 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6870
6871 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6872
6873 <blockquote><p>
6874   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
6875   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
6876   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
6877   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
6878   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
6879   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
6880   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
6881   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
6882   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
6883   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
6884   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6885   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6886   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
6887   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
6888   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
6889   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
6890   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6891   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
6892   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6893   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
6894   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
6895   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6896   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
6897   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
6898   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
6899   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6900   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6901   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
6902   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6903   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
6904   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
6905   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6906   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
6907   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
6908   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
6909   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
6910   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
6911   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
6912   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
6913   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
6914   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
6915   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
6916   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
6917   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
6918   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
6919   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
6920   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
6921   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
6922   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
6923   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
6924   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
6925   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
6926   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6927   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
6928   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
6929   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
6930   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
6931   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
6932   zip
6933 </p></blockquote>
6934
6935 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
6936
6937 <blockquote><p>
6938   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
6939   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
6940   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
6941   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
6942   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
6943   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
6944   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
6945   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
6946   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
6947   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
6948   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
6949   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6950   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
6951   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
6952   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6953   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
6954   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
6955   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
6956   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
6957   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
6958   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
6959   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
6960   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
6961   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
6962   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
6963   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
6964   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
6965   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
6966   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
6967 </p></blockquote>
6968
6969 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6970
6971 <blockquote><p>
6972   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6973 </p></blockquote>
6974
6975 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6976
6977 <blockquote><p>
6978 [nothing]
6979 </p></blockquote>
6980
6981 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6982
6983 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6984
6985 <blockquote><p>
6986   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
6987   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6988   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
6989   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
6990   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
6991   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
6992   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6993   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
6994   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
6995   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6996   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
6997   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
6998   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
6999   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
7000   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
7001   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
7002   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
7003   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
7004   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
7005   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
7006   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
7007   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
7008   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
7009   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
7010   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
7011   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
7012   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
7013   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
7014   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
7015   ttf-sazanami-gothic
7016 </p></blockquote>
7017
7018 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7019
7020 <blockquote><p>
7021   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
7022   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
7023   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
7024   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
7025   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
7026   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
7027   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
7028   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
7029   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
7030   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
7031   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
7032   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
7033   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
7034   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
7035   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
7036   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
7037   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
7038   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
7039   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
7040   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
7041   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
7042   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
7043   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
7044   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
7045   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
7046   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
7047   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
7048   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
7049   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
7050   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
7051   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
7052   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
7053   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
7054 </p></blockquote>
7055
7056 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7057
7058 <blockquote><p>
7059   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
7060   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
7061   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
7062   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
7063   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
7064   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
7065   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
7066 </p></blockquote>
7067
7068 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7069
7070 <blockquote><p>
7071   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
7072 </p></blockquote>
7073
7074       </div>
7075       <div class="tags">
7076
7077
7078         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>.
7079
7080
7081       </div>
7082     </div>
7083     <div class="padding"></div>
7084
7085     <div class="entry">
7086       <div class="title">
7087         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
7088       </div>
7089       <div class="date">
7090         20th November 2010
7091       </div>
7092       <div class="body">
7093         <p>Answering
7094 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
7095 call from the Gnash project</a> for
7096 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
7097 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
7098 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
7099 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
7100 releases out more often.</p>
7101
7102 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
7103 I have considered setting up a <a
7104 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
7105 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
7106 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
7107 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
7108 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
7109 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
7110 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
7111 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
7112 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
7113 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
7114 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
7115 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
7116
7117       </div>
7118       <div class="tags">
7119
7120
7121         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>.
7122
7123
7124       </div>
7125     </div>
7126     <div class="padding"></div>
7127
7128     <div class="entry">
7129       <div class="title">
7130         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
7131       </div>
7132       <div class="date">
7133          9th November 2010
7134       </div>
7135       <div class="body">
7136         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
7137
7138 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
7139 3D linked in from
7140 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
7141 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
7142
7143       </div>
7144       <div class="tags">
7145
7146
7147         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>.
7148
7149
7150       </div>
7151     </div>
7152     <div class="padding"></div>
7153
7154     <div class="entry">
7155       <div class="title">
7156         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
7157       </div>
7158       <div class="date">
7159         24th October 2010
7160       </div>
7161       <div class="body">
7162         <p>Some updates.</p>
7163
7164 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
7165 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
7166 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
7167 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
7168 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
7169 :)</p>
7170
7171 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
7172 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
7173 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
7174 It is called
7175 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
7176 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
7177 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
7178 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
7179 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
7180 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
7181
7182 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
7183 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
7184 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
7185 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
7186 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
7187 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
7188 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
7189 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
7190 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
7191 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
7192
7193       </div>
7194       <div class="tags">
7195
7196
7197         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>.
7198
7199
7200       </div>
7201     </div>
7202     <div class="padding"></div>
7203
7204     <div class="entry">
7205       <div class="title">
7206         <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>
7207       </div>
7208       <div class="date">
7209          4th September 2010
7210       </div>
7211       <div class="body">
7212         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
7213 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
7214 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
7215 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
7216 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
7217 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
7218 installed.</p>
7219
7220 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
7221 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
7222 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
7223 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
7224 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
7225 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
7226 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
7227 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
7228 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
7229
7230 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
7231 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
7232 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
7233 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
7234 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
7235 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
7236 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
7237 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
7238 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
7239 pages they want to visit.</p>
7240
7241 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
7242 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
7243 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
7244 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
7245 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
7246 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
7247 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
7248 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
7249 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
7250 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
7251 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
7252
7253       </div>
7254       <div class="tags">
7255
7256
7257         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>.
7258
7259
7260       </div>
7261     </div>
7262     <div class="padding"></div>
7263
7264     <div class="entry">
7265       <div class="title">
7266         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
7267       </div>
7268       <div class="date">
7269         27th July 2010
7270       </div>
7271       <div class="body">
7272         <p>I discovered this while doing
7273 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
7274 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
7275 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
7276 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
7277 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
7278
7279 <p>An example is from todays
7280 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
7281 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
7282 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
7283 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
7284 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
7285 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
7286 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
7287
7288 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
7289
7290 <blockquote><pre>
7291 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
7292  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
7293   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
7294 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
7295  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
7296 </pre></blockquote>
7297
7298 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
7299 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
7300 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
7301 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
7302 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
7303 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
7304 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
7305 of dependency loops.</p>
7306
7307 <p>Thanks to
7308 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
7309 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
7310 dependencies
7311 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
7312 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
7313
7314 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
7315 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
7316 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
7317 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
7318 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
7319 it.</p>
7320
7321       </div>
7322       <div class="tags">
7323
7324
7325         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>.
7326
7327
7328       </div>
7329     </div>
7330     <div class="padding"></div>
7331
7332     <div class="entry">
7333       <div class="title">
7334         <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>
7335       </div>
7336       <div class="date">
7337         17th July 2010
7338       </div>
7339       <div class="body">
7340         <p>This is a
7341 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
7342 on my
7343 <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
7344 work</a> on
7345 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
7346 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
7347
7348 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
7349 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
7350 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
7351 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
7352
7353 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
7354 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
7355 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
7356
7357 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
7358
7359 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
7360 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
7361 the web.
7362
7363 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
7364 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
7365 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
7366 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
7367 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
7368 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
7369
7370 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
7371 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
7372 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
7373 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
7374 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
7375 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
7376 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
7377 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
7378 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
7379 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
7380 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
7381 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
7382 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
7383 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
7384 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
7385 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
7386
7387 <blockquote><pre>
7388 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7389   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7390   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7391   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7392   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7393   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7394   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7395
7396 ldapsearch -h ldap \
7397   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
7398   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
7399   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
7400   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
7401   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
7402 </pre></blockquote>
7403
7404 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
7405 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
7406 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
7407 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7408 also exist.</p>
7409
7410 <blockquote><pre>
7411 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7412 objectclass: top
7413 objectclass: dnsdomain
7414 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7415 dc: tjener
7416 arecord: 10.0.2.2
7417 associateddomain: tjener.intern
7418
7419 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7420 objectclass: top
7421 objectclass: dnsdomain2
7422 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7423 dc: 2
7424 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
7425 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
7426 </pre></blockquote>
7427
7428 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
7429 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
7430 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
7431 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
7432 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
7433 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
7434 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
7435 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
7436 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
7437 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
7438 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
7439 instead.</p>
7440
7441 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
7442 like this:</p>
7443
7444 <blockquote><pre>
7445 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7446   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
7447   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
7448   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
7449   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
7450   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
7451
7452 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
7453   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
7454 </pre></blockquote>
7455
7456 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
7457 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
7458 reverse lookups.</p>
7459
7460 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
7461 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
7462 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
7463 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
7464
7465 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
7466 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
7467 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
7468
7469 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
7470 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
7471 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
7472 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
7473 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
7474
7475 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
7476 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
7477 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
7478 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
7479 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
7480
7481 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
7482 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
7483 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
7484 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
7485 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
7486 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
7487
7488 <blockquote><pre>
7489 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
7490     SUP top
7491     AUXILIARY
7492     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
7493           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
7494           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
7495           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
7496           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
7497     ))
7498 </pre></blockquote>
7499
7500 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
7501 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
7502 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
7503 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
7504 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
7505 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
7506
7507 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
7508
7509 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
7510 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
7511 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
7512 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
7513 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
7514
7515 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
7516 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
7517 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
7518 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
7519
7520 <blockquote><pre>
7521 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
7522 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
7523 </pre></blockquote>
7524
7525 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
7526 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
7527 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
7528 search result is this entry:</p>
7529
7530 <blockquote><pre>
7531 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7532 cn: dhcp
7533 objectClass: top
7534 objectClass: dhcpServer
7535 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7536 </pre></blockquote>
7537
7538 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
7539 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
7540 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
7541 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
7542 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
7543 The search result is this entry:</p>
7544
7545 <blockquote><pre>
7546 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7547 cn: DHCP Config
7548 objectClass: top
7549 objectClass: dhcpService
7550 objectClass: dhcpOptions
7551 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7552 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
7553 dhcpStatements: authoritative
7554 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
7555 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
7556 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
7557 </pre></blockquote>
7558
7559 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
7560 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
7561 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
7562 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
7563 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
7564 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
7565 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
7566 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
7567 related computer objects.</p>
7568
7569 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
7570 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
7571 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
7572 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
7573 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
7574 like:</p>
7575
7576 <blockquote><pre>
7577 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7578 cn: hostname
7579 objectClass: top
7580 objectClass: dhcpHost
7581 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7582 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
7583 </pre></blockquote>
7584
7585 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
7586 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
7587 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
7588 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
7589 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
7590 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
7591 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
7592 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
7593 structural object class.
7594
7595 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
7596
7597 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
7598 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
7599 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
7600 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
7601 in the configuration.</p>
7602
7603 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
7604 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
7605 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
7606 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
7607 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
7608 structure.</p>
7609
7610 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
7611 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
7612
7613 <blockquote><pre>
7614 ou=services
7615   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
7616     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
7617     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7618       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7619         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7620     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
7621       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
7622         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
7623     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
7624       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
7625 </pre></blockquote>
7626
7627 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
7628 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
7629 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
7630 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
7631
7632 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
7633 like this:</p>
7634
7635 <blockquote><pre>
7636 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7637 dc: hostname
7638 objectClass: top
7639 objectClass: dhcpHost
7640 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7641 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
7642 associateddomain: hostname.intern
7643 arecord: 10.11.12.13
7644 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7645 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
7646 </pre></blockquote>
7647
7648 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
7649 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
7650 auxiliary object class.</p>
7651
7652       </div>
7653       <div class="tags">
7654
7655
7656         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>.
7657
7658
7659       </div>
7660     </div>
7661     <div class="padding"></div>
7662
7663     <div class="entry">
7664       <div class="title">
7665         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
7666       </div>
7667       <div class="date">
7668         14th July 2010
7669       </div>
7670       <div class="body">
7671         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
7672 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
7673 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
7674 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
7675 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
7676
7677 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
7678 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
7679
7680 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
7681 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
7682 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
7683 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
7684 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
7685 to a slave DNS server.</p>
7686
7687 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
7688 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
7689 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
7690 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
7691 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
7692 seem to work.</p>
7693
7694 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
7695 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
7696 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
7697 this:</p>
7698
7699 <blockquote><pre>
7700   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
7701   cn: hostname
7702   objectClass: dhcphost
7703   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
7704   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
7705   associateddomain: hostname.intern
7706   arecord: 10.11.12.13
7707   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
7708   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
7709   ldapconfigsound: Y
7710 </pre></blockquote>
7711
7712 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
7713 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
7714 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
7715 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
7716
7717 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
7718 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
7719 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
7720 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
7721 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
7722 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
7723 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
7724 might be a good place to put it.</p>
7725
7726 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7727 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7728
7729       </div>
7730       <div class="tags">
7731
7732
7733         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>.
7734
7735
7736       </div>
7737     </div>
7738     <div class="padding"></div>
7739
7740     <div class="entry">
7741       <div class="title">
7742         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
7743       </div>
7744       <div class="date">
7745         11th July 2010
7746       </div>
7747       <div class="body">
7748         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
7749 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
7750 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
7751 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
7752
7753 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
7754 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
7755 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
7756 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
7757 LTSP clients.</p>
7758
7759 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
7760 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
7761 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
7762
7763 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
7764 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
7765 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
7766
7767 <blockquote><pre>
7768 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
7769 #
7770 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
7771 #
7772 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
7773 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
7774 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
7775 #
7776 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
7777 # existence of attribute names.
7778 #
7779 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
7780 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
7781 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
7782 #
7783 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
7784 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
7785 #
7786 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
7787 #     SUP top
7788 #     AUXILIARY
7789 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
7790
7791 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
7792 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
7793     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
7794     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
7795         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
7796         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
7797             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
7798             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
7799             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
7800             # bass value on to clients
7801             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
7802         done
7803     done
7804 fi
7805 </pre></blockquote>
7806
7807 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
7808 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
7809 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
7810 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
7811 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
7812
7813 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
7814 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
7815
7816 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
7817 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
7818 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
7819 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
7820 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
7821 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
7822
7823       </div>
7824       <div class="tags">
7825
7826
7827         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>.
7828
7829
7830       </div>
7831     </div>
7832     <div class="padding"></div>
7833
7834     <div class="entry">
7835       <div class="title">
7836         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7837       </div>
7838       <div class="date">
7839          9th July 2010
7840       </div>
7841       <div class="body">
7842         <p>Since
7843 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
7844 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
7845 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
7846 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
7847 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
7848 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
7849 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
7850 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
7851 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
7852 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
7853 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
7854 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
7855 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
7856
7857       </div>
7858       <div class="tags">
7859
7860
7861         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>.
7862
7863
7864       </div>
7865     </div>
7866     <div class="padding"></div>
7867
7868     <div class="entry">
7869       <div class="title">
7870         <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>
7871       </div>
7872       <div class="date">
7873          3rd July 2010
7874       </div>
7875       <div class="body">
7876         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
7877 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
7878 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
7879 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
7880 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
7881 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
7882 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
7883 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
7884
7885 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
7886 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
7887 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
7888 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
7889 publish the difference.</p>
7890
7891 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7892
7893 <blockquote><p>
7894   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7895   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
7896   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
7897   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7898   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
7899   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
7900   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
7901   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
7902 </p></blockquote>
7903
7904 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7905
7906 <blockquote><p>
7907   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
7908   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
7909   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
7910   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
7911   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
7912   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
7913   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7914   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
7915   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7916   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
7917   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
7918   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
7919   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
7920   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
7921   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
7922   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
7923   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
7924   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
7925   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
7926   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
7927 </p></blockquote>
7928
7929 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7930
7931 <blockquote><p>
7932   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
7933   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
7934   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
7935   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
7936   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
7937   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
7938   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
7939   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
7940   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
7941   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
7942   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
7943   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
7944   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
7945   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
7946   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
7947   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
7948   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
7949   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
7950   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
7951   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
7952   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
7953 </p></blockquote>
7954
7955 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7956
7957 <blockquote><p>
7958   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
7959   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
7960   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
7961 </p></blockquote>
7962
7963 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
7964 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
7965 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
7966 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
7967 the difference somewhat.
7968
7969       </div>
7970       <div class="tags">
7971
7972
7973         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>.
7974
7975
7976       </div>
7977     </div>
7978     <div class="padding"></div>
7979
7980     <div class="entry">
7981       <div class="title">
7982         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
7983       </div>
7984       <div class="date">
7985         28th June 2010
7986       </div>
7987       <div class="body">
7988         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
7989 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
7990 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
7991 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
7992 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
7993 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
7994 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
7995 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
7996 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
7997 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
7998
7999 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
8000 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
8001 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
8002 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
8003 released.</p>
8004
8005 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
8006 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
8007 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
8008 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
8009
8010 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
8011 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8012
8013 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
8014 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
8015 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
8016 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
8017 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
8018
8019       </div>
8020       <div class="tags">
8021
8022
8023         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>.
8024
8025
8026       </div>
8027     </div>
8028     <div class="padding"></div>
8029
8030     <div class="entry">
8031       <div class="title">
8032         <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>
8033       </div>
8034       <div class="date">
8035         24th June 2010
8036       </div>
8037       <div class="body">
8038         <p>A while back, I
8039 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
8040 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
8041 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
8042 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
8043
8044 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
8045 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
8046 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
8047 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
8048
8049 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
8050 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
8051 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
8052 Debian Edu.</p>
8053
8054 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
8055 the
8056 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
8057 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
8058 available today from IETF.</p>
8059
8060 <pre>
8061 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
8062 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
8063 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
8064  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
8065         NAME 'dhcpHost'
8066         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
8067 -       SUP top
8068 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
8069         MUST cn
8070         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
8071         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
8072 </pre>
8073
8074 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
8075 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
8076 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
8077
8078 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
8079 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8080
8081       </div>
8082       <div class="tags">
8083
8084
8085         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>.
8086
8087
8088       </div>
8089     </div>
8090     <div class="padding"></div>
8091
8092     <div class="entry">
8093       <div class="title">
8094         <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>
8095       </div>
8096       <div class="date">
8097         16th June 2010
8098       </div>
8099       <div class="body">
8100         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
8101 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
8102 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
8103 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
8104 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
8105 this:
8106
8107 <blockquote><pre>
8108 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8109 tasksel --new-install
8110 </pre></blockquote>
8111
8112 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
8113 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
8114 any output what so ever.
8115
8116 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
8117 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
8118 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
8119 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
8120 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
8121 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
8122 code like this:
8123
8124 <blockquote><pre>
8125 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8126 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
8127 $cmd
8128 </pre></blockquote>
8129
8130 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
8131 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
8132 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
8133 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
8134 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
8135 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
8136 installation.</p>
8137
8138 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
8139 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
8140 like this.</p>
8141
8142       </div>
8143       <div class="tags">
8144
8145
8146         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>.
8147
8148
8149       </div>
8150     </div>
8151     <div class="padding"></div>
8152
8153     <div class="entry">
8154       <div class="title">
8155         <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>
8156       </div>
8157       <div class="date">
8158         13th June 2010
8159       </div>
8160       <div class="body">
8161         <p>My
8162 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
8163 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
8164 finally made the upgrade logs available from
8165 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
8166 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
8167 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
8168 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
8169
8170 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
8171 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
8172 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
8173 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
8174 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
8175 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
8176 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
8177 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
8178
8179 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
8180 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
8181 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
8182 too surprising.</p>
8183
8184 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
8185 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
8186 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
8187 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
8188 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
8189 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
8190 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
8191 continue.</p>
8192
8193 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
8194 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
8195   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
8196   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
8197   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
8198   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
8199   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
8200   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
8201   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
8202   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
8203   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
8204   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
8205   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
8206   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
8207   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
8208   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8209   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
8210   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
8211   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
8212   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
8213   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
8214   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
8215   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
8216   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
8217   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
8218   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
8219   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
8220   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
8221   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
8222   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
8223
8224 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
8225
8226 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
8227   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
8228   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
8229   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
8230   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
8231   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
8232   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
8233   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
8234   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
8235   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
8236   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
8237   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
8238   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
8239   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
8240   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
8241   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
8242   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
8243   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
8244   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
8245   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
8246   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
8247   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
8248   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
8249   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
8250   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
8251   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
8252   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
8253   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
8254   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
8255   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8256   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
8257   zip</p>
8258
8259 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
8260
8261 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
8262   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
8263   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
8264   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
8265   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
8266   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
8267   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
8268   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
8269   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
8270   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
8271   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
8272   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
8273   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
8274   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
8275   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8276   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
8277   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
8278   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
8279   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
8280   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
8281   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
8282   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
8283   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
8284   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
8285   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
8286   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
8287   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
8288   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
8289
8290 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
8291 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
8292   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
8293   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
8294   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
8295   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
8296   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
8297   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
8298   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
8299   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
8300   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
8301   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
8302   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
8303   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
8304   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
8305   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
8306   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
8307   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
8308   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
8309   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
8310   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
8311   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
8312   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
8313   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
8314   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
8315   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
8316   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
8317   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
8318   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
8319   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
8320   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
8321   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
8322   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
8323   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
8324   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
8325   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
8326   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
8327   xulrunner-1.9</p>
8328
8329
8330       </div>
8331       <div class="tags">
8332
8333
8334         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>.
8335
8336
8337       </div>
8338     </div>
8339     <div class="padding"></div>
8340
8341     <div class="entry">
8342       <div class="title">
8343         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
8344       </div>
8345       <div class="date">
8346         11th June 2010
8347       </div>
8348       <div class="body">
8349         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
8350 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
8351 have been discovered and reported in the process
8352 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
8353 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
8354 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
8355 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
8356 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
8357
8358 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
8359 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
8360 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
8361 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
8362 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
8363 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
8364
8365 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
8366 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
8367 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
8368 is created.  The bug report
8369 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
8370 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
8371 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
8372 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
8373 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
8374 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
8375 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
8376 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
8377 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
8378 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
8379 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
8380 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
8381 Debian Squeeze.</p>
8382
8383 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
8384 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
8385 trick:</p>
8386
8387 <blockquote><pre>
8388 #!/bin/sh
8389 set -ex
8390
8391 if [ "$1" ] ; then
8392     desktop=$1
8393 else
8394     desktop=gnome
8395 fi
8396
8397 from=lenny
8398 to=squeeze
8399
8400 exec &lt; /dev/null
8401 unset LANG
8402 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
8403 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
8404 fuser -mv .
8405 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
8406 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
8407 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
8408 #!/bin/sh
8409 exit 101
8410 EOF
8411 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
8412 exit_cleanup() {
8413     umount $tmpdir/proc
8414 }
8415 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
8416 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
8417 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
8418
8419 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
8420
8421 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
8422 # to return the correct answers.
8423 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
8424     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
8425
8426 # Include the desktop and laptop task
8427 for test in desktop laptop ; do
8428     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
8429 #!/bin/sh
8430 exit 2
8431 EOF
8432     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
8433 done
8434
8435 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
8436 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
8437 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
8438 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
8439
8440 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
8441 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
8442 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
8443 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
8444 fuser -mv
8445 </pre></blockquote>
8446
8447 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
8448 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
8449 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
8450 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
8451 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
8452 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
8453
8454 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
8455 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
8456 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
8457 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
8458 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
8459 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
8460 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
8461
8462 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
8463 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
8464 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
8465 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
8466 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
8467 packages.</p>
8468
8469       </div>
8470       <div class="tags">
8471
8472
8473         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>.
8474
8475
8476       </div>
8477     </div>
8478     <div class="padding"></div>
8479
8480     <div class="entry">
8481       <div class="title">
8482         <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>
8483       </div>
8484       <div class="date">
8485          6th June 2010
8486       </div>
8487       <div class="body">
8488         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
8489 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
8490 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
8491 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
8492 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
8493 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
8494 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
8495
8496 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
8497 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
8498 COLUMNS):</p>
8499
8500 <blockquote><pre>
8501 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
8502 previous=N
8503 PREVLEVEL=
8504 RUNLEVEL=
8505 runlevel=S
8506 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
8507 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
8508 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
8509 </pre></blockquote>
8510
8511 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
8512 script.</p>
8513
8514 <blockquote><pre>
8515 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
8516 previous=N
8517 PREVLEVEL=N
8518 RUNLEVEL=S
8519 runlevel=S
8520 </pre></blockquote>
8521
8522 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
8523 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
8524 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
8525
8526 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
8527 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
8528 choice.</p>
8529
8530       </div>
8531       <div class="tags">
8532
8533
8534         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>.
8535
8536
8537       </div>
8538     </div>
8539     <div class="padding"></div>
8540
8541     <div class="entry">
8542       <div class="title">
8543         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
8544       </div>
8545       <div class="date">
8546          6th June 2010
8547       </div>
8548       <div class="body">
8549         <p>Via the
8550 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
8551 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
8552 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
8553 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
8554 following the standards wars of today.</p>
8555
8556       </div>
8557       <div class="tags">
8558
8559
8560         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>.
8561
8562
8563       </div>
8564     </div>
8565     <div class="padding"></div>
8566
8567     <div class="entry">
8568       <div class="title">
8569         <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>
8570       </div>
8571       <div class="date">
8572          3rd June 2010
8573       </div>
8574       <div class="body">
8575         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
8576 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
8577 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
8578 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
8579 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
8580
8581 <blockquote><pre>
8582 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
8583   vendor                    count
8584   Dell Computer Corporation     1
8585     PowerEdge 1750              1
8586   IBM                           1
8587     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
8588   Intel                         2
8589   [no-dmi-info]                 3
8590 maintainer:~#
8591 </pre></blockquote>
8592
8593 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
8594 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
8595 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
8596 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
8597 option to list the individual machines.</p>
8598
8599 <p>A larger list is
8600 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
8601 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
8602 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
8603 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
8604 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
8605 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
8606 collector.</p>
8607
8608       </div>
8609       <div class="tags">
8610
8611
8612         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>.
8613
8614
8615       </div>
8616     </div>
8617     <div class="padding"></div>
8618
8619     <div class="entry">
8620       <div class="title">
8621         <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>
8622       </div>
8623       <div class="date">
8624          1st June 2010
8625       </div>
8626       <div class="body">
8627         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
8628 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
8629 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
8630 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
8631 wait.</p>
8632
8633 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
8634 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
8635 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
8636 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
8637 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
8638 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
8639
8640 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
8641 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
8642 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
8643 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
8644 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
8645 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
8646 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
8647 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
8648
8649 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
8650
8651       </div>
8652       <div class="tags">
8653
8654
8655         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>.
8656
8657
8658       </div>
8659     </div>
8660     <div class="padding"></div>
8661
8662     <div class="entry">
8663       <div class="title">
8664         <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>
8665       </div>
8666       <div class="date">
8667         27th May 2010
8668       </div>
8669       <div class="body">
8670         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
8671 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
8672 issues are known and should be solved:
8673
8674 <p><ul>
8675
8676 <li>The wicd package seen to
8677 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
8678 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
8679 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
8680 seem to be on the case.</li>
8681
8682 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
8683 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
8684 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
8685 maintainer is on the case.</li>
8686
8687 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
8688 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
8689 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
8690 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
8691 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
8692 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
8693 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
8694 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
8695
8696 </ul></p>
8697
8698 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
8699 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
8700 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
8701 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
8702
8703 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8704 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8705 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8706 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8707
8708 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
8709
8710       </div>
8711       <div class="tags">
8712
8713
8714         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>.
8715
8716
8717       </div>
8718     </div>
8719     <div class="padding"></div>
8720
8721     <div class="entry">
8722       <div class="title">
8723         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
8724       </div>
8725       <div class="date">
8726         22nd May 2010
8727       </div>
8728       <div class="body">
8729         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
8730 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
8731 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
8732 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
8733
8734 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
8735 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
8736 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
8737 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
8738 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
8739 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
8740 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
8741 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
8742 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
8743 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
8744 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
8745 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
8746 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
8747 going to work.</p>
8748
8749 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
8750 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
8751 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
8752 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
8753 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
8754 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
8755 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
8756 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
8757 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
8758 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
8759 Edu.</p>
8760
8761 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
8762 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
8763 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
8764 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
8765 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
8766 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
8767
8768 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
8769 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
8770
8771       </div>
8772       <div class="tags">
8773
8774
8775         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>.
8776
8777
8778       </div>
8779     </div>
8780     <div class="padding"></div>
8781
8782     <div class="entry">
8783       <div class="title">
8784         <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>
8785       </div>
8786       <div class="date">
8787         14th May 2010
8788       </div>
8789       <div class="body">
8790         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
8791 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
8792 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
8793 expected, if I am to believe the
8794 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8795 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
8796 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
8797 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
8798 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
8799 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
8800 version.</p>
8801
8802 More information about
8803 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8804 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
8805 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
8806 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8807
8808 <blockquote><pre>
8809 CONCURRENCY=none
8810 </pre></blockquote>
8811
8812 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8813 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8814 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8815 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8816
8817       </div>
8818       <div class="tags">
8819
8820
8821         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>.
8822
8823
8824       </div>
8825     </div>
8826     <div class="padding"></div>
8827
8828     <div class="entry">
8829       <div class="title">
8830         <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>
8831       </div>
8832       <div class="date">
8833         14th May 2010
8834       </div>
8835       <div class="body">
8836         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
8837 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
8838 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
8839 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
8840 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
8841 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
8842 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
8843 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
8844
8845 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
8846 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
8847 this on the collector host:</p>
8848
8849 <blockquote><pre>
8850 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
8851 </pre></blockquote>
8852
8853 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
8854 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
8855
8856 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
8857 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
8858 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
8859 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
8860 written yet.</p>
8861
8862       </div>
8863       <div class="tags">
8864
8865
8866         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>.
8867
8868
8869       </div>
8870     </div>
8871     <div class="padding"></div>
8872
8873     <div class="entry">
8874       <div class="title">
8875         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
8876       </div>
8877       <div class="date">
8878         13th May 2010
8879       </div>
8880       <div class="body">
8881         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
8882 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
8883 has been
8884 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
8885
8886 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
8887 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
8888 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
8889 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
8890 based boot system.  Tollef is
8891 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
8892 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
8893 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
8894 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
8895 at the moment do not.</p>
8896
8897 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
8898 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
8899 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
8900 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
8901 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
8902 way forward.</p>
8903
8904 <p>In the mean time, based on the
8905 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
8906 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
8907 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
8908 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
8909 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
8910 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
8911 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
8912 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
8913
8914       </div>
8915       <div class="tags">
8916
8917
8918         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>.
8919
8920
8921       </div>
8922     </div>
8923     <div class="padding"></div>
8924
8925     <div class="entry">
8926       <div class="title">
8927         <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>
8928       </div>
8929       <div class="date">
8930          6th May 2010
8931       </div>
8932       <div class="body">
8933         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
8934 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
8935 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
8936 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
8937 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
8938 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
8939 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
8940
8941 <blockquote><pre>
8942 CONCURRENCY=makefile
8943 </pre></blockquote>
8944
8945 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
8946 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
8947 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
8948 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
8949 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
8950 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
8951 make this happen.</p>
8952
8953 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
8954 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
8955 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
8956 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
8957 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
8958
8959 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
8960 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
8961 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
8962 fix the remaining issues.</p>
8963
8964 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
8965 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
8966 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
8967 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
8968
8969       </div>
8970       <div class="tags">
8971
8972
8973         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>.
8974
8975
8976       </div>
8977     </div>
8978     <div class="padding"></div>
8979
8980     <div class="entry">
8981       <div class="title">
8982         <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>
8983       </div>
8984       <div class="date">
8985         27th July 2009
8986       </div>
8987       <div class="body">
8988         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
8989 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
8990 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
8991 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
8992 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
8993 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
8994 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
8995
8996 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
8997 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
8998 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
8999
9000       </div>
9001       <div class="tags">
9002
9003
9004         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>.
9005
9006
9007       </div>
9008     </div>
9009     <div class="padding"></div>
9010
9011     <div class="entry">
9012       <div class="title">
9013         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
9014       </div>
9015       <div class="date">
9016         22nd July 2009
9017       </div>
9018       <div class="body">
9019         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
9020 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
9021 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
9022 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
9023 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
9024 the package up to date.</p>
9025
9026 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
9027 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
9028 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
9029 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
9030 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
9031 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
9032 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
9033 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
9034 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
9035 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
9036 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
9037 working on the future release.</p>
9038
9039 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
9040 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
9041
9042       </div>
9043       <div class="tags">
9044
9045
9046         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>.
9047
9048
9049       </div>
9050     </div>
9051     <div class="padding"></div>
9052
9053     <div class="entry">
9054       <div class="title">
9055         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
9056       </div>
9057       <div class="date">
9058         24th June 2009
9059       </div>
9060       <div class="body">
9061         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
9062 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
9063 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
9064 funded
9065 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
9066 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
9067 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
9068 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
9069 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
9070 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
9071
9072 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
9073 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
9074 boot:</p>
9075
9076 <ul>
9077
9078 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
9079
9080 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
9081    clock is in UTC.</li>
9082
9083 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
9084    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
9085    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
9086
9087 </ul>
9088
9089 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
9090 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
9091 Villegas</a>.
9092
9093 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
9094 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
9095 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
9096 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
9097 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
9098 using this.</p>
9099
9100 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
9101 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
9102 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
9103 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
9104 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
9105 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
9106 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
9107
9108       </div>
9109       <div class="tags">
9110
9111
9112         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>.
9113
9114
9115       </div>
9116     </div>
9117     <div class="padding"></div>
9118
9119     <div class="entry">
9120       <div class="title">
9121         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
9122       </div>
9123       <div class="date">
9124         17th May 2009
9125       </div>
9126       <div class="body">
9127         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
9128 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
9129 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
9130 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
9131 dager siden kom
9132 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
9133 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
9134 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
9135 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
9136 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
9137
9138 <blockquote>
9139 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
9140 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
9141 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
9142 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
9143 </blockquote>
9144
9145 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
9146 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
9147 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
9148 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
9149 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
9150
9151 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
9152 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
9153 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
9154
9155       </div>
9156       <div class="tags">
9157
9158
9159         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>.
9160
9161
9162       </div>
9163     </div>
9164     <div class="padding"></div>
9165
9166     <div class="entry">
9167       <div class="title">
9168         <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>
9169       </div>
9170       <div class="date">
9171          7th May 2009
9172       </div>
9173       <div class="body">
9174         <p>Kom over
9175 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
9176 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
9177 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
9178 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
9179 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
9180 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
9181 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
9182
9183       </div>
9184       <div class="tags">
9185
9186
9187         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>.
9188
9189
9190       </div>
9191     </div>
9192     <div class="padding"></div>
9193
9194     <div class="entry">
9195       <div class="title">
9196         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
9197       </div>
9198       <div class="date">
9199          2nd May 2009
9200       </div>
9201       <div class="body">
9202         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
9203 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
9204 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
9205 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
9206 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
9207 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
9208 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
9209 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
9210 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
9211 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
9212 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
9213 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
9214 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
9215 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
9216 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
9217 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
9218 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
9219 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
9220 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
9221 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
9222
9223 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
9224 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
9225 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
9226 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
9227 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
9228 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
9229 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
9230 betydelige.</p>
9231
9232       </div>
9233       <div class="tags">
9234
9235
9236         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>.
9237
9238
9239       </div>
9240     </div>
9241     <div class="padding"></div>
9242
9243     <div class="entry">
9244       <div class="title">
9245         <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>
9246       </div>
9247       <div class="date">
9248          2nd May 2009
9249       </div>
9250       <div class="body">
9251         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
9252 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
9253 do not yet know them.</p>
9254
9255 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
9256 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
9257 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
9258 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
9259 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
9260 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
9261 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
9262 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
9263 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
9264 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
9265 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
9266
9267 <p>The second one is
9268 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
9269 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
9270 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
9271 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
9272 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
9273 and the company behind it is running
9274 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
9275 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
9276 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
9277 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
9278 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
9279 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
9280 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
9281 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
9282
9283 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
9284 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
9285 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
9286 surrounded by today.</p>
9287
9288       </div>
9289       <div class="tags">
9290
9291
9292         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>.
9293
9294
9295       </div>
9296     </div>
9297     <div class="padding"></div>
9298
9299     <div class="entry">
9300       <div class="title">
9301         <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>
9302       </div>
9303       <div class="date">
9304         28th April 2009
9305       </div>
9306       <div class="body">
9307         <p>Julien Blache
9308 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
9309 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
9310 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
9311 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
9312 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
9313 properties.</p>
9314
9315       </div>
9316       <div class="tags">
9317
9318
9319         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>.
9320
9321
9322       </div>
9323     </div>
9324     <div class="padding"></div>
9325
9326     <div class="entry">
9327       <div class="title">
9328         <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>
9329       </div>
9330       <div class="date">
9331         30th March 2009
9332       </div>
9333       <div class="body">
9334         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
9335 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
9336 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
9337 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
9338 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
9339 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
9340 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
9341 application.</p>
9342
9343 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
9344 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
9345 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
9346 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
9347 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
9348 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
9349 blocked from doing so.</p>
9350
9351 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
9352 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
9353 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
9354 requirements change.</p>
9355
9356 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
9357 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
9358 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
9359
9360       </div>
9361       <div class="tags">
9362
9363
9364         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>.
9365
9366
9367       </div>
9368     </div>
9369     <div class="padding"></div>
9370
9371     <div class="entry">
9372       <div class="title">
9373         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
9374       </div>
9375       <div class="date">
9376         29th March 2009
9377       </div>
9378       <div class="body">
9379         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
9380 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
9381 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
9382 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
9383 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
9384 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
9385 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
9386 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
9387 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
9388 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
9389 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
9390 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
9391 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
9392 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
9393 now. :)</p>
9394
9395       </div>
9396       <div class="tags">
9397
9398
9399         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>.
9400
9401
9402       </div>
9403     </div>
9404     <div class="padding"></div>
9405
9406     <div class="entry">
9407       <div class="title">
9408         <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>
9409       </div>
9410       <div class="date">
9411         29th March 2009
9412       </div>
9413       <div class="body">
9414         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
9415 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
9416 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
9417 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
9418 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
9419 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
9420
9421 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
9422 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
9423 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
9424 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
9425 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
9426 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
9427 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
9428 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
9429 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
9430 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
9431 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
9432 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
9433 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
9434
9435 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
9436 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
9437 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
9438 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
9439
9440 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
9441 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
9442
9443 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
9444 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
9445 new IETF work group?</p>
9446
9447       </div>
9448       <div class="tags">
9449
9450
9451         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>.
9452
9453
9454       </div>
9455     </div>
9456     <div class="padding"></div>
9457
9458     <div class="entry">
9459       <div class="title">
9460         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
9461       </div>
9462       <div class="date">
9463         15th February 2009
9464       </div>
9465       <div class="body">
9466         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
9467 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
9468 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
9469 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
9470 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
9471 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
9472 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
9473 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
9474 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
9475 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
9476 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
9477 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
9478
9479       </div>
9480       <div class="tags">
9481
9482
9483         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>.
9484
9485
9486       </div>
9487     </div>
9488     <div class="padding"></div>
9489
9490     <div class="entry">
9491       <div class="title">
9492         <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>
9493       </div>
9494       <div class="date">
9495          7th December 2008
9496       </div>
9497       <div class="body">
9498         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
9499 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
9500 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
9501 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
9502 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
9503 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
9504 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
9505 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
9506
9507 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
9508 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
9509 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
9510 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
9511 of these cards.</p>
9512
9513       </div>
9514       <div class="tags">
9515
9516
9517         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>.
9518
9519
9520       </div>
9521     </div>
9522     <div class="padding"></div>
9523
9524     <div class="entry">
9525       <div class="title">
9526         <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>
9527       </div>
9528       <div class="date">
9529         25th November 2008
9530       </div>
9531       <div class="body">
9532         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
9533 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
9534 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
9535 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
9536 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
9537 notes are available on
9538 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
9539 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
9540 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
9541 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
9542 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
9543 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
9544 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
9545 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
9546 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
9547
9548 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
9549 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
9550
9551       </div>
9552       <div class="tags">
9553
9554
9555         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>.
9556
9557
9558       </div>
9559     </div>
9560     <div class="padding"></div>
9561
9562     <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>
9563     <div id="sidebar">
9564
9565
9566
9567 <h2>Archive</h2>
9568 <ul>
9569
9570 <li>2015
9571 <ul>
9572
9573 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9574
9575 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9576
9577 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
9578
9579 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
9580
9581 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9582
9583 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
9584
9585 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
9586
9587 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
9588
9589 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
9590
9591 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
9592
9593 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
9594
9595 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (2)</a></li>
9596
9597 </ul></li>
9598
9599 <li>2014
9600 <ul>
9601
9602 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9603
9604 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
9605
9606 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
9607
9608 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9609
9610 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
9611
9612 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9613
9614 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
9615
9616 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
9617
9618 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9619
9620 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
9621
9622 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9623
9624 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
9625
9626 </ul></li>
9627
9628 <li>2013
9629 <ul>
9630
9631 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
9632
9633 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
9634
9635 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
9636
9637 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
9638
9639 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9640
9641 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
9642
9643 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9644
9645 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9646
9647 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
9648
9649 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
9650
9651 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
9652
9653 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9654
9655 </ul></li>
9656
9657 <li>2012
9658 <ul>
9659
9660 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
9661
9662 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
9663
9664 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
9665
9666 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
9667
9668 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
9669
9670 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
9671
9672 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
9673
9674 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9675
9676 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
9677
9678 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
9679
9680 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
9681
9682 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9683
9684 </ul></li>
9685
9686 <li>2011
9687 <ul>
9688
9689 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
9690
9691 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
9692
9693 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
9694
9695 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
9696
9697 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
9698
9699 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
9700
9701 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
9702
9703 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
9704
9705 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
9706
9707 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9708
9709 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9710
9711 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
9712
9713 </ul></li>
9714
9715 <li>2010
9716 <ul>
9717
9718 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
9719
9720 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
9721
9722 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
9723
9724 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
9725
9726 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9727
9728 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
9729
9730 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
9731
9732 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
9733
9734 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
9735
9736 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
9737
9738 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
9739
9740 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
9741
9742 </ul></li>
9743
9744 <li>2009
9745 <ul>
9746
9747 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
9748
9749 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
9750
9751 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
9752
9753 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
9754
9755 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
9756
9757 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
9758
9759 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
9760
9761 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
9762
9763 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
9764
9765 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
9766
9767 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
9768
9769 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
9770
9771 </ul></li>
9772
9773 <li>2008
9774 <ul>
9775
9776 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
9777
9778 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
9779
9780 </ul></li>
9781
9782 </ul>
9783
9784
9785
9786 <h2>Tags</h2>
9787 <ul>
9788
9789  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
9790
9791  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
9792
9793  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
9794
9795  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
9796
9797  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (9)</a></li>
9798
9799  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (15)</a></li>
9800
9801  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
9802
9803  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
9804
9805  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (115)</a></li>
9806
9807  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (154)</a></li>
9808
9809  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
9810
9811  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
9812
9813  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (20)</a></li>
9814
9815  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
9816
9817  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (297)</a></li>
9818
9819  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
9820
9821  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
9822
9823  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (25)</a></li>
9824
9825  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
9826
9827  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (16)</a></li>
9828
9829  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
9830
9831  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
9832
9833  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (11)</a></li>
9834
9835  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (19)</a></li>
9836
9837  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
9838
9839  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
9840
9841  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
9842
9843  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
9844
9845  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
9846
9847  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (36)</a></li>
9848
9849  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (272)</a></li>
9850
9851  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (177)</a></li>
9852
9853  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (22)</a></li>
9854
9855  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
9856
9857  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (58)</a></li>
9858
9859  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (92)</a></li>
9860
9861  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
9862
9863  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
9864
9865  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
9866
9867  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
9868
9869  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
9870
9871  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
9872
9873  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
9874
9875  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
9876
9877  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (44)</a></li>
9878
9879  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
9880
9881  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
9882
9883  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (48)</a></li>
9884
9885  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
9886
9887  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (10)</a></li>
9888
9889  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (36)</a></li>
9890
9891  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
9892
9893  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
9894
9895  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
9896
9897  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (54)</a></li>
9898
9899  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
9900
9901  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (37)</a></li>
9902
9903 </ul>
9904
9905
9906     </div>
9907     <p style="text-align: right">
9908  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
9909 </p>
9910
9911   </body>
9912 </html>