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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="https://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="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speech_to_text__she_APTly_whispered__how_hard_can_it_be_.html">Speech to text, she APTly whispered, how hard can it be?</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         23rd April 2023
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>While visiting a convention during Eastern, it occurred to me that
  32 it would be great if I could have a digital Dictaphone with
  33 transcribing capabilities, providing me with texts to cut-n-paste into
  34 stuff I need to write.  The background is that long drives often bring
  35 up the urge to write on texts I am working on, which of course is out
  36 of the question while driving.  With the release of
  37 <a href="https://github.com/openai/whisper/">OpenAI Whisper</a>, this
  38 seem to be within reach with Free Software, so I decided to give it a
  39 go.  OpenAI Whisper is a Linux based neural network system to read in
  40 audio files and provide text representation of the speech in that
  41 audio recording.  It handle multiple languages and according to its
  42 creators even can translate into a different language than the spoken
  43 one.  I have not tested the latter feature.  It can either use the CPU
  44 or a GPU with CODA support.  As far as I can tell, CODA in practice
  45 limit that feature to NVidia graphics cards.  I have few of those, as
  46 they do not work great with free software drivers, and have not tested
  47 the GPU option.  While looking into the matter, I did discover some
  48 work to provide CODA support on non-NVidia GPUs, and some work with
  49 the library used by Whisper to port it to other GPUs, but have not
  50 spent much time looking into GPU support yet.  I've so far used an old
  51 X220 laptop as my test machine, and only transcribed using its
  52 CPU.</p>
  53
  54 <p>As it from a privacy standpoint is unthinkable to use computers
  55 under control of someone else (aka a "cloud" service) to transcribe
  56 ones thoughts and personal notes, I want to run the transcribing
  57 system locally on my own computers.  The only sensible approach to me
  58 is to make the effort I put into this available for any Linux user and
  59 to upload the needed packages into Debian.  Looking at Debian Bookworm, I
  60 discovered that only three packages were missing,
  61 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1034307">tiktoken</a>,
  62 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1034144">triton</a>, and
  63 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1034091">openai-whisper</a>.  For a while
  64 I also believed
  65 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1034286">ffmpeg-python</a> was
  66 needed, but as its
  67 <a href="https://github.com/kkroening/ffmpeg-python/issues/760">upstream
  68 seem to have vanished</a> I found it safer
  69 <a href="https://github.com/openai/whisper/pull/1242">to rewrite
  70 whisper</a> to stop depending on in than to introduce ffmpeg-python
  71 into Debian.  I decided to place these packages under the umbrella of
  72 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/deeplearning-team">the Debian Deep
  73 Learning Team</a>, which seem like the best team to look after such
  74 packages.  Discussing the topic within the group also made me aware
  75 that the triton package was already a future dependency of newer
  76 versions of the torch package being planned, and would be needed after
  77 Bookworm is released.</p>
  78
  79 <p>All required code packages have been now waiting in
  80 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the Debian NEW
  81 queue</a> since Wednesday, heading for Debian Experimental until
  82 Bookworm is released.  An unsolved issue is how to handle the neural
  83 network models used by Whisper.  The default behaviour of Whisper is
  84 to require Internet connectivity and download the model requested to
  85 <tt>~/.cache/whisper/</tt> on first invocation.  This obviously would
  86 fail <a href="https://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html">the
  87 deserted island test of free software</a> as the Debian packages would
  88 be unusable for someone stranded with only the Debian archive and solar
  89 powered computer on a deserted island.</p>
  90
  91 <p>Because of this, I would love to include the models in the Debian
  92 mirror system.  This is problematic, as the models are very large
  93 files, which would put a heavy strain on the Debian mirror
  94 infrastructure around the globe.  The strain would be even higher if
  95 the models change often, which luckily as far as I can tell they do
  96 not.  The small model, which according to its creator is most useful
  97 for English and in my experience is not doing a great job there
  98 either, is 462 MiB (deb is 414 MiB).  The medium model, which to me
  99 seem to handle English speech fairly well is 1.5 GiB (deb is 1.3 GiB)
 100 and the large model is 2.9 GiB (deb is 2.6 GiB).  I would assume
 101 everyone with enough resources would prefer to use the large model for
 102 highest quality.  I believe the models themselves would have to go
 103 into the non-free part of the Debian archive, as they are not really
 104 including any useful source code for updating the models.  The
 105 "source", aka the model training set, according to the creators
 106 consist of "680,000 hours of multilingual and multitask supervised
 107 data collected from the web", which to me reads material with both
 108 unknown copyright terms, unavailable to the general public.  In other
 109 words, the source is not available according to the Debian Free
 110 Software Guidelines and the model should be considered non-free.</p>
 111
 112 <p>I asked the Debian FTP masters for advice regarding uploading a
 113 model package on their IRC channel, and based on the feedback there it
 114 is still unclear to me if such package would be accepted into the
 115 archive.  In any case I wrote build rules for a
 116 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/deeplearning-team/openai-whisper-model">OpenAI
 117 Whisper model package</a> and
 118 <a href="https://github.com/openai/whisper/pull/1257">modified the
 119 Whisper code base</a> to prefer shared files under <tt>/usr/</tt> and
 120 <tt>/var/</tt> over user specific files in <tt>~/.cache/whisper/</tt>
 121 to be able to use these model packages, to prepare for such
 122 possibility.  One solution might be to include only one of the models
 123 (small or medium, I guess) in the Debian archive, and ask people to
 124 download the others from the Internet.  Not quite sure what to do
 125 here, and advice is most welcome (use the debian-ai mailing list).</p>
 126
 127 <p>To make it easier to test the new packages while I wait for them to
 128 clear the NEW queue, I created an APT source targeting bookworm.  I
 129 selected Bookworm instead of Bullseye, even though I know the latter
 130 would reach more users, is that some of the required dependencies are
 131 missing from Bullseye and I during this phase of testing did not want
 132 to backport a lot of packages just to get up and running.</p>
 133
 134 <p>Here is a recipe to run as user root if you want to test OpenAI
 135 Whisper using Debian packages on your Debian Bookworm installation,
 136 first adding the APT repository GPG key to the list of trusted keys,
 137 then setting up the APT repository and finally installing the packages
 138 and one of the models:</p>
 139
 140 <p><pre>
 141 curl https://geekbay.nuug.no/~pere/openai-whisper/D78F5C4796F353D211B119E28200D9B589641240.asc \
 142   -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/pere-whisper.asc
 143 mkdir -p /etc/apt/sources.list.d
 144 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pere-whisper.list &lt;&lt;EOF
 145 deb https://geekbay.nuug.no/~pere/openai-whisper/ bookworm main
 146 deb-src https://geekbay.nuug.no/~pere/openai-whisper/ bookworm main
 147 EOF
 148 apt update
 149 apt install openai-whisper
 150 </pre></p>
 151
 152 <p>The package work for me, but have not yet been tested on any other
 153 computer than my own.  With it, I have been able to (badly) transcribe
 154 a 2 minute 40 second Norwegian audio clip to test using the small
 155 model.  This took 11 minutes and around 2.2 GiB of RAM.  Transcribing
 156 the same file with the medium model gave a accurate text in 77 minutes
 157 using around 5.2 GiB of RAM.  My test machine had too little memory to
 158 test the large model, which I believe require 11 GiB of RAM.  In
 159 short, this now work for me using Debian packages, and I hope it will
 160 for you and everyone else once the packages enter Debian.</p>
 161
 162 <p>Now I can start on the audio recording part of this project.</p>
 163
 164 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 165 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 166 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 167
 168       </div>
 169       <div class="tags">
 170
 171
 172         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 173
 174
 175       </div>
 176     </div>
 177     <div class="padding"></div>
 178
 179     <div class="entry">
 180       <div class="title">
 181         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/rtlsdr_scanner__software_defined_radio_frequency_scanner_for_Linux____nice_free_software.html">rtlsdr-scanner, software defined radio frequency scanner for Linux  - nice free software</a>
 182       </div>
 183       <div class="date">
 184          7th April 2023
 185       </div>
 186       <div class="body">
 187         <p>Today I finally found time to track down a useful radio frequency
 188 scanner for my software defined radio.  Just for fun I tried to locate
 189 the radios used in the areas, and a good start would be to scan all
 190 the frequencies to see what is in use.  I've tried to find a useful
 191 program earlier, but ran out of time before I managed to find a useful
 192 tool.  This time I was more successful, and after a few false leads I
 193 found a description of
 194 <a href="https://www.kali.org/tools/rtlsdr-scanner/">rtlsdr-scanner
 195 over at the Kali site</a>, and was able to track down
 196 <a href="https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/packages/rtlsdr-scanner.git">the
 197 Kali package git repository</a> to build a deb package for the
 198 scanner.  Sadly the package is missing from the Debian project itself,
 199 at least in Debian Bullseye.  Two runtime dependencies,
 200 <a href="https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/packages/python-visvis.git">python-visvis</a>
 201 and
 202 <a href="https://gitlab.com/kalilinux/packages/python-rtlsdr.git">python-rtlsdr</a>
 203 had to be built and installed separately.  Luckily '<tt>gbp
 204 buildpackage</tt>' handled them just fine and no further packages had
 205 to be manually built.  The end result worked out of the box after
 206 installation.</p>
 207
 208 <p>My initial scans for FM channels worked just fine, so I knew the
 209 scanner was functioning.  But when I tried to scan every frequency
 210 from 100 to 1000 MHz, the program stopped unexpectedly near the
 211 completion.  After some debugging I discovered USB software radio I
 212 used rejected frequencies above 948 MHz, triggering a unreported
 213 exception breaking the scan.  Changing the scan to end at 957 worked
 214 better.  I similarly found the lower limit to be around 15, and ended
 215 up with the following full scan:</p>
 216
 217 <p><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2023-04-07-radio-freq-scanning.png"><img src="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2023-04-07-radio-freq-scanning.png" width="100%"></a></p>
 218
 219 <p>Saving the scan did not work, but exporting it as a CSV file worked
 220 just fine.  I ended up with around 477k CVS lines with dB level for
 221 the given frequency.</p>
 222
 223 <p>The save failure seem to be a missing UTF-8 encoding issue in the
 224 python code.  Will see if I can find time to send a patch
 225 <a href="https://github.com/CdeMills/RTLSDR-Scanner/">upstream</a>
 226 later to fix this exception:</p>
 227
 228 <pre>
 229 Traceback (most recent call last):
 230   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/main_window.py", line 485, in __on_save
 231     save_plot(fullName, self.scanInfo, self.spectrum, self.locations)
 232   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/file.py", line 408, in save_plot
 233     handle.write(json.dumps(data, indent=4))
 234 TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'
 235 Traceback (most recent call last):
 236   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/main_window.py", line 485, in __on_save
 237     save_plot(fullName, self.scanInfo, self.spectrum, self.locations)
 238   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/rtlsdr_scanner/file.py", line 408, in save_plot
 239     handle.write(json.dumps(data, indent=4))
 240 TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'
 241 </pre>
 242
 243 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 244 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 245 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 246
 247       </div>
 248       <div class="tags">
 249
 250
 251         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
 252
 253
 254       </div>
 255     </div>
 256     <div class="padding"></div>
 257
 258     <div class="entry">
 259       <div class="title">
 260         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenSnitch_available_in_Debian_Sid_and_Bookworm.html">OpenSnitch available in Debian Sid and Bookworm</a>
 261       </div>
 262       <div class="date">
 263         25th February 2023
 264       </div>
 265       <div class="body">
 266         <p>Thanks to the efforts of the OpenSnitch lead developer Gustavo
 267 Iñiguez Goya allowing me to sponsor the upload,
 268 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/opensnitch">the interactive
 269 application firewall OpenSnitch</a> is now available in Debian
 270 Testing, soon to become the next stable release of Debian.</p>
 271
 272 <p>This is a package which set up a network firewall on one or more
 273 machines, which is controlled by a graphical user interface that will
 274 ask the user if a program should be allowed to connect to the local
 275 network or the Internet.  If some background daemon is trying to dial
 276 home, it can be blocked from doing so with a simple mouse click, or by
 277 default simply by not doing anything when the GUI question dialog pop
 278 up.  A list of all programs discovered using the network is provided
 279 in the GUI, giving the user an overview of how the machine(s) programs
 280 use the network.</p>
 281
 282 <p>OpenSnitch was uploaded for NEW processing about a month ago, and I
 283 had little hope of it getting accepted and shaping up in time for the
 284 package freeze, but the Debian ftpmasters proved to be amazingly quick
 285 at checking out the package and it was accepted into the archive about
 286 week after the first upload.  It is now team maintained under the Go
 287 language team umbrella.  A few fixes to the default setup is only in
 288 Sid, and should migrate to Testing/Bookworm in a week.</p>
 289
 290 <p>During testing I ran into an
 291 <a href="https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch/issues/813">issue
 292 with Minecraft server broadcasts disappearing</a>, which was quickly
 293 resolved by the developer with a patch and a proposed configuration
 294 change.  I've been told this was caused by the Debian packages default
 295 use if /proc/ information to track down kernel status, instead of the
 296 newer eBPF module that can be used.  The reason is simply that
 297 upstream and I have failed to find a way to build the eBPF modules for
 298 OpenSnitch without a complete configured Linux kernel source tree,
 299 which as far as we can tell is unavailable as a build dependency in
 300 Debian.  We tried unsuccessfully so far to use the kernel-headers
 301 package.  It would be great if someone could provide some clues how to
 302 build eBPF modules on build daemons in Debian, possibly without the full
 303 kernel source.</p>
 304
 305 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 306 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 307 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 308
 309       </div>
 310       <div class="tags">
 311
 312
 313         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 314
 315
 316       </div>
 317     </div>
 318     <div class="padding"></div>
 319
 320     <div class="entry">
 321       <div class="title">
 322         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_the_desktop_recommending_your_program_for_opening_its_files_.html">Is the desktop recommending your program for opening its files?</a>
 323       </div>
 324       <div class="date">
 325         29th January 2023
 326       </div>
 327       <div class="body">
 328         <p>Linux desktop systems
 329 <a href="https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html">have
 330 standardized</a> how programs present themselves to the desktop
 331 system.  If a package include a .desktop file in
 332 /usr/share/applications/, Gnome, KDE, LXDE, Xfce and the other desktop
 333 environments will pick up the file and use its content to generate the
 334 menu of available programs in the system.  A lesser known fact is that
 335 a package can also explain to the desktop system how to recognize the
 336 files created by the program in question, and use it to open these
 337 files on request, for example via a GUI file browser.</p>
 338
 339 <p>A while back I ran into a package that did not tell the desktop
 340 system how to recognize its files and was not used to open its files
 341 in the file browser and fixed it.  In the process I wrote a simple
 342 debian/tests/ script to ensure the setup keep working.  It might be
 343 useful for other packages too, to ensure any future version of the
 344 package keep handling its own files.</p>
 345
 346 <p>For this to work the file format need a useful MIME type that can
 347 be used to identify the format.  If the file format do not yet have a
 348 MIME type, it should define one and preferably also
 349 <a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">register
 350 it with IANA</a> to ensure the MIME type string is reserved.</p>
 351
 352 <p>The script uses the <tt>xdg-mime</tt> program from xdg-utils to
 353 query the database of standardized package information and ensure it
 354 return sensible values.  It also need the location of an example file
 355 for xdg-mime to guess the format of.</p>
 356
 357 <pre>
 358 #!/bin/sh
 359 #
 360 # Author: Petter Reinholdtsen
 361 # License: GPL v2 or later at your choice.
 362 #
 363 # Validate the MIME setup, making sure motor types have
 364 # application/vnd.openmotor+yaml associated with them and is connected
 365 # to the openmotor desktop file.
 366
 367 retval=0
 368
 369 mimetype="application/vnd.openmotor+yaml"
 370 testfile="test/data/real/o3100/motor.ric"
 371 mydesktopfile="openmotor.desktop"
 372
 373 filemime="$(xdg-mime query filetype "$testfile")"
 374
 375 if [ "$mimetype" != "$filemime" ] ; then
 376     retval=1
 377     echo "error: xdg-mime claim motor file MIME type is $filemine, not $mimetype"
 378 else
 379     echo "success: xdg-mime report correct mime type $mimetype for motor file"
 380 fi
 381
 382 desktop=$(xdg-mime query default "$mimetype")
 383
 384 if [ "$mydesktopfile" != "$desktop" ]; then
 385     retval=1
 386     echo "error: xdg-mime claim motor file should be handled by $desktop, not $mydesktopfile"
 387 else
 388     echo "success: xdg-mime agree motor file should be handled by $mydesktopfile"
 389 fi
 390
 391 exit $retval
 392 </pre>
 393
 394 <p>It is a simple way to ensure your users are not very surprised when
 395 they try to open one of your file formats in their file browser.</p>
 396
 397 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 398 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 399 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 400
 401       </div>
 402       <div class="tags">
 403
 404
 405         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 406
 407
 408       </div>
 409     </div>
 410     <div class="padding"></div>
 411
 412     <div class="entry">
 413       <div class="title">
 414         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Opensnitch__the_application_level_interactive_firewall__heading_into_the_Debian_archive.html">Opensnitch, the application level interactive firewall, heading into the Debian archive</a>
 415       </div>
 416       <div class="date">
 417         22nd January 2023
 418       </div>
 419       <div class="body">
 420         <p>While reading a
 421 <a href="https://sneak.berlin/20230115/macos-scans-your-local-files-now/">blog
 422 post claiming MacOS X recently started scanning local files and
 423 reporting information about them to Apple</a>, even on a machine where
 424 all such callback features had been disabled, I came across a
 425 description of the Little Snitch application for MacOS X.  It seemed
 426 like a very nice tool to have in the tool box, and I decided to see if
 427 something similar was available for Linux.</p>
 428
 429 <p>It did not take long to find
 430 <a href="https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch">the OpenSnitch
 431 package</a>, which has been in development since 2017, and now is in
 432 version 1.5.0.  It has had a
 433 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/909567">request for Debian
 434 packaging</a> since 2018, but no-one completed the job so far.  Just
 435 for fun, I decided to see if I could help, and I was very happy to
 436 discover that
 437 <a href="https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch/issues/304">upstream
 438 want a Debian package too</a>.</p>
 439
 440 <p>After struggling a bit with getting the program to run, figuring
 441 out building Go programs (and a little failed detour to look at eBPF
 442 builds too - help needed), I am very happy to report that I am
 443 sponsoring upstream to maintain the package in Debian, and it has
 444 since this morning been waiting in NEW for the ftpmasters to have a
 445 look.  Perhaps it can get into the archive in time for the Bookworm
 446 release?</p>
 447
 448 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 449 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 450 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 451
 452       </div>
 453       <div class="tags">
 454
 455
 456         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 457
 458
 459       </div>
 460     </div>
 461     <div class="padding"></div>
 462
 463     <div class="entry">
 464       <div class="title">
 465         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LinuxCNC_MQTT_publisher_component.html">LinuxCNC MQTT publisher component</a>
 466       </div>
 467       <div class="date">
 468          8th January 2023
 469       </div>
 470       <div class="body">
 471         <p>I watched <a href="https://yewtu.be/watch?v=jmKUV3aNLjk">a 2015
 472 video from Andreas Schiffler</a> the other day, where he set up
 473 <a href="https://linuxcnc.org/">LinuxCNC</a> to send status
 474 information to the MQTT broker IBM Bluemix.  As I also use MQTT for
 475 graphing, it occured to me that a generic MQTT LinuxCNC component
 476 would be useful and I set out to implement it.  Today I got the first
 477 draft limping along and submitted as
 478 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/pull/2253">a patch to the
 479 LinuxCNC project</a>.</p>
 480
 481 <p>The simple part was setting up the MQTT publishing code in Python.
 482 I already have set up other parts submitting data to my Mosquito MQTT
 483 broker, so I could reuse that code.  Writing a LinuxCNC component in
 484 Python as new to me, but using existing examples in the code
 485 repository and the extensive documentation, this was fairly straight
 486 forward.  The hardest part was creating a automated test for the
 487 component to ensure it was working.  Testing it in a simulated
 488 LinuxCNC machine proved very useful, as I discovered features I needed
 489 that I had not thought of yet, and adjusted the code quite a bit to
 490 make it easier to test without a operational MQTT broker
 491 available.</p>
 492
 493 <p>The draft is ready and working, but I am unsure which LinuxCNC HAL
 494 pins I should collect and publish by default (in other words, the
 495 default set of information pieces published), and how to get the
 496 machine name from the LinuxCNC INI file.  The latter is a minor
 497 detail, but I expect it would be useful in a setup with several
 498 machines available.  I am hoping for feedback from the experienced
 499 LinuxCNC developers and users, to make the component even better
 500 before it can go into the mainland LinuxCNC code base.</p>
 501
 502 <p>Since I started on the MQTT component, I came across
 503 <a href="https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Bqa2grG0XtA">another video from Kent
 504 VanderVelden</a> where he combine LinuxCNC with a set of screen glasses
 505 controlled by a Raspberry Pi, and it occured to me that it would
 506 be useful for such use cases if LinuxCNC also provided a REST API for
 507 querying its status.  I hope to start on such component once the MQTT
 508 component is working well.</p>
 509
 510 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 511 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 512 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 513
 514       </div>
 515       <div class="tags">
 516
 517
 518         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
 519
 520
 521       </div>
 522     </div>
 523     <div class="padding"></div>
 524
 525     <div class="entry">
 526       <div class="title">
 527         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ONVIF_IP_camera_management_tool_finally_in_Debian.html">ONVIF IP camera management tool finally in Debian</a>
 528       </div>
 529       <div class="date">
 530         24th December 2022
 531       </div>
 532       <div class="body">
 533         <p>Merry Christmas to you all.  Here is a small gift to all those with
 534 IP cameras following the <a href="https://www.onvif.org/">ONVIF
 535 specification</a>.  There is finally a nice command line and GUI tool
 536 in Debian to manage ONVIF IP cameras.  After working with upstream for
 537 a few months and sponsoring the upload, I am very happy to report that
 538 the <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/libonvif">libonvif package</a>
 539 entered Debian Sid last night.</p>
 540
 541 <p>The package provide a C library to communicate with such cameras, a
 542 command line tool to locate and update settings of (like password) the
 543 cameras and a GUI tool to configure and control the units as well as
 544 preview the video from the camera.  Libonvif is available on Both
 545 Linux and Windows and the GUI tool uses the Qt library.  The main
 546 competitors are non-free software, while libonvif is GNU GPL licensed.
 547 I am very glad Debian users in the future can control their cameras
 548 using a free software system provided by Debian.  But the ONVIF world
 549 is full of slightly broken firmware, where the cameras pretend to
 550 follow the ONVIF specification but fail to set some configuration
 551 values or refuse to provide video to more than one recipient at the
 552 time, and the onvif project is quite young and might take a while
 553 before it completely work with your camera.  Upstream seem eager to
 554 improve the library, so handling any broken camera might be just <a
 555 href="https://github.com/sr99622/libonvif/">a bug report away</a>.</p>
 556
 557 <p>The package just cleared NEW, and need a new source only upload
 558 before it can enter testing.  This will happen in the next few
 559 days.</p>
 560
 561 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 562 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 563 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 564
 565       </div>
 566       <div class="tags">
 567
 568
 569         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 570
 571
 572       </div>
 573     </div>
 574     <div class="padding"></div>
 575
 576     <div class="entry">
 577       <div class="title">
 578         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Managing_and_using_ONVIF_IP_cameras_with_Linux.html">Managing and using ONVIF IP cameras with Linux</a>
 579       </div>
 580       <div class="date">
 581         19th October 2022
 582       </div>
 583       <div class="body">
 584         <p>Recently I have been looking at how to control and collect data
 585 from a handful IP cameras using Linux.  I both wanted to change their
 586 settings and to make their imagery available via a free software
 587 service under my control.  Here is a summary of the tools I found.</p>
 588
 589 <p>First I had to identify the cameras and their protocols.  As far as
 590 I could tell, they were using some SOAP looking protocol and their
 591 internal web server seem to only work with Microsoft Internet Explorer
 592 with some proprietary binary plugin, which in these days of course is
 593 a security disaster and also made it impossible for me to use the
 594 camera web interface.  Luckily I discovered that the SOAP looking
 595 protocol is actually following <a href="https://www.onvif.org/">the
 596 ONVIF specification</a>, which seem to be supported by a lot of IP
 597 cameras these days.</p>
 598
 599 <p>Once the protocol was identified, I was able to find what appear to
 600 be the most popular way to configure ONVIF cameras, the free software
 601 Windows tool named
 602 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/onvifdm/">ONVIF Device
 603 Manager</a>.  Lacking any other options at the time, I tried
 604 unsuccessfully to get it running using Wine, but was missing a dotnet
 605 40 library and I found no way around it to run it on Linux.</p>
 606
 607 <p>The next tool I found to configure the cameras were a non-free Linux Qt
 608 client <a href="https://www.lingodigit.com/onvif_nvcdemo.html">ONVIF
 609 Device Tool</a>.  I did not like its terms of use, so did not spend
 610 much time on it.</p>
 611
 612 <p>To collect the video and make it available in a web interface, I
 613 found the Zoneminder tool in Debian.  A recent version was able to
 614 automatically detect and configure ONVIF devices, so I could use it to
 615 set up motion detection in and collection of the camera output.  I had
 616 initial problems getting the ONVIF autodetection to work, as both
 617 Firefox and Chromium <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1001188">refused
 618 the inter-tab communication</a> being used by the Zoneminder web
 619 pages, but managed to get konqueror to work.  Apparently the "Enhanced
 620 Tracking Protection" in Firefox cause the problem.  I ended up
 621 upgrading to the Bookworm edition of Zoneminder in the process to try
 622 to fix the issue, and believe the problem might be solved now.</p>
 623
 624 <p>In the process I came across the nice Linux GUI tool
 625 <a href="https://gitlab.com/caspermeijn/onvifviewer/">ONVIF Viewer</a>
 626 allowing me to preview the camera output and validate the login
 627 passwords required.  Sadly its author has grown tired of maintaining
 628 the software, so it might not see any future updates.  Which is sad,
 629 as the viewer is sightly unstable and the picture tend to lock up.
 630 Note, this lockup might be due to limitations in the cameras and not
 631 the viewer implementation.  I suspect the camera is only able to
 632 provide pictures to one client at the time, and the Zoneminder feed
 633 might interfere with the GUI viewer.  I have
 634 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1000820">asked for the tool to be
 635 included in Debian</a>.</p>
 636
 637 <p>Finally, I found what appear to be very nice Linux free software
 638 replacement for the Windows tool, named
 639 <a href="https://github.com/sr99622/libonvif/">libonvif</a>.  It
 640 provide a C library to talk to ONVIF devices as well as a command line
 641 and GUI tool using the library.  Using the GUI tool I was able to change
 642 the admin passwords and update other settings of the cameras.  I have
 643 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1021980">asked for the package to be
 644 included in Debian</a>.</p>
 645
 646 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 647 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 648 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 649
 650 <p><strong>Update 2022-10-20</strong>: Since my initial publication of
 651 this text, I got several suggestions for more free software Linux
 652 tools.  There is <a href="https://github.com/quatanium/python-onvif">a
 653 ONVIF python library</a> (already
 654 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/824240">requested into Debian</a>) and
 655 <a href="https://github.com/FalkTannhaeuser/python-onvif-zeep">a python 3
 656 fork</a> using a different SOAP dependency.  There is also
 657 <a href="https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/onvif/">support for
 658 ONVIF in Home Assistant</a>, and there is an alternative to Zoneminder
 659 called <a href="https://www.shinobi.video/">Shinobi</a>.  The latter
 660 two are not included in Debian either.  I have not tested any of these
 661 so far.</p>
 662
 663       </div>
 664       <div class="tags">
 665
 666
 667         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 668
 669
 670       </div>
 671     </div>
 672     <div class="padding"></div>
 673
 674     <div class="entry">
 675       <div class="title">
 676         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_translate_the_Bullseye_edition_of_the_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Time to translate the Bullseye edition of the Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
 677       </div>
 678       <div class="date">
 679         12th September 2022
 680       </div>
 681       <div class="body">
 682         <p align="center"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2020-10-20-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.jpeg" width="60%"/></p>
 683
 684 <p>(The picture is of the previous edition.)</p>
 685
 686 <p>Almost two years after the previous Norwegian Bokmål translation of
 687 the "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
 688 Handbook</a>" was published, a new edition is finally being prepared.  The
 689 english text is updated, and it is time to start working on the
 690 translations.  Around 37 percent of the strings have been updated, one
 691 way or another, and the translations starting from a complete Debian Buster
 692 edition now need to bring their translation up from 63% to 100%.  The
 693 complete book is licensed using a Creative Commons license, and has
 694 been published in several languages over the years.  The translations
 695 are done by volunteers to bring Linux in their native tongue.  The
 696 last time I checked, it complete text was available in English,
 697 Norwegian Bokmål, German, Indonesian, Brazil Portuguese and Spanish.
 698 In addition, work has been started for Arabic (Morocco), Catalan,
 699 Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish,
 700 Dutch, French, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish,
 701 Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish and Vietnamese.</p>
 702
 703 <p>The translation is conducted on
 704 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
 705 hosted weblate project page</a>.  Prospective translators are
 706 recommeded to subscribe to
 707 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
 708 translators mailing list</a> and should also check out
 709 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
 710 contributors</a>.</p>
 711
 712 <p>I am one of the Norwegian Bokmål translators of this book, and we
 713 have just started.  Your contribution is most welcome.</p>
 714
 715 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 716 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 717 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 718
 719       </div>
 720       <div class="tags">
 721
 722
 723         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 724
 725
 726       </div>
 727     </div>
 728     <div class="padding"></div>
 729
 730     <div class="entry">
 731       <div class="title">
 732         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_LinuxCNC_servo_PID_tuning_.html">Automatic LinuxCNC servo PID tuning?</a>
 733       </div>
 734       <div class="date">
 735         16th July 2022
 736       </div>
 737       <div class="body">
 738         <p>While working on a CNC with servo motors controlled by the
 739 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxCNC">LinuxCNC</a>
 740 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller">PID
 741 controller</a>, I recently had to learn how to tune the collection of values
 742 that control such mathematical machinery that a PID controller is.  It
 743 proved to be a lot harder than I hoped, and I still have not succeeded
 744 in getting the Z PID controller to successfully defy gravity, nor X
 745 and Y to move accurately and reliably.  But while climbing up this
 746 rather steep learning curve, I discovered that some motor control
 747 systems are able to tune their PID controllers.  I got the impression
 748 from the documentation that LinuxCNC were not.  This proved to be not
 749 true.</p>
 750
 751 <p>The LinuxCNC
 752 <a href="http://linuxcnc.org/docs/html/man/man9/pid.9.html">pid
 753 component</a> is the recommended PID controller to use.  It uses eight
 754 constants <tt>Pgain</tt>, <tt>Igain</tt>, <tt>Dgain</tt>,
 755 <tt>bias</tt>, <tt>FF0</tt>, <tt>FF1</tt>, <tt>FF2</tt> and
 756 <tt>FF3</tt> to calculate the output value based on current and wanted
 757 state, and all of these need to have a sensible value for the
 758 controller to behave properly.  Note, there are even more values
 759 involved, theser are just the most important ones.  In my case I need
 760 the X, Y and Z axes to follow the requested path with little error.
 761 This has proved quite a challenge for someone who have never tuned a
 762 PID controller before, but there is at least some help to be found.
 763
 764 <p>I discovered that included in LinuxCNC was this old PID component
 765 at_pid claiming to have auto tuning capabilities.  Sadly it had been
 766 neglected since 2011, and could not be used as a plug in replacement
 767 for the default pid component.  One would have to rewriting the
 768 LinuxCNC HAL setup to test at_pid.  This was rather sad, when I wanted
 769 to quickly test auto tuning to see if it did a better job than me at
 770 figuring out good P, I and D values to use.</p>
 771
 772 <p>I decided to have a look if the situation could be improved.  This
 773 involved trying to understand the code and history of the pid and
 774 at_pid components.  Apparently they had a common ancestor, as code
 775 structure, comments and variable names were quite close to each other.
 776 Sadly this was not reflected in the git history, making it hard to
 777 figure out what really happened.  My guess is that the author of
 778 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master/src/hal/components/at_pid.c">at_pid.c</a>
 779 took a version of
 780 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master/src/hal/components/pid.c">pid.c</a>,
 781 rewrote it to follow the structure he wished pid.c to have, then added
 782 support for auto tuning and finally got it included into the LinuxCNC
 783 repository.  The restructuring and lack of early history made it
 784 harder to figure out which part of the code were relevant to the auto
 785 tuning, and which part of the code needed to be updated to work the
 786 same way as the current pid.c implementation.  I started by trying to
 787 isolate relevant changes in pid.c, and applying them to at_pid.c.  My
 788 aim was to make sure the at_pid component could replace the pid
 789 component with a simple change in the HAL setup loadrt line, without
 790 having to "rewire" the rest of the HAL configuration.  After a few
 791 hours following this approach, I had learned quite a lot about the
 792 code structure of both components, while concluding I was heading down
 793 the wrong rabbit hole, and should get back to the surface and find a
 794 different path.</p>
 795
 796 <p>For the second attempt, I decided to throw away all the PID control
 797 related part of the original at_pid.c, and instead isolate and lift
 798 the auto tuning part of the code and inject it into a copy of pid.c.
 799 This ensured compatibility with the current pid component, while
 800 adding auto tuning as a run time option.  To make it easier to identify
 801 the relevant parts in the future, I wrapped all the auto tuning code
 802 with '#ifdef AUTO_TUNER'.  The end result behave just like the current
 803 pid component by default, as that part of the code is identical.  The
 804 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/pull/1820">end result
 805 entered the LinuxCNC master branch</a> a few days ago.</p>
 806
 807 <p>To enable auto tuning, one need to set a few HAL pins in the PID
 808 component.  The most important ones are <tt>tune-effort</tt>,
 809 <tt>tune-mode</tt> and <tt>tune-start</tt>.  But lets take a step
 810 back, and see what the auto tuning code will do.  I do not know the
 811 mathematical foundation of the at_pid algorithm, but from observation
 812 I can tell that the algorithm will, when enabled, produce a square
 813 wave pattern centered around the <tt>bias</tt> value on the output pin
 814 of the PID controller.  This can be seen using the HAL Scope provided
 815 by LinuxCNC.  In my case, this is translated into voltage (+-10V) sent
 816 to the motor controller, which in turn is translated into motor speed.
 817 So at_pid will ask the motor to move the axis back and forth.  The
 818 number of cycles in the pattern is controlled by the
 819 <tt>tune-cycles</tt> pin, and the extremes of the wave pattern is
 820 controlled by the <tt>tune-effort</tt> pin.  Of course, trying to
 821 change the direction of a physical object instantly (as in going
 822 directly from a positive voltage to the equivalent negative voltage)
 823 do not change velocity instantly, and it take some time for the object
 824 to slow down and move in the opposite direction.  This result in a
 825 more smooth movement wave form, as the axis in question were vibrating
 826 back and forth.  When the axis reached the target speed in the
 827 opposing direction, the auto tuner change direction again.  After
 828 several of these changes, the average time delay between the 'peaks'
 829 and 'valleys' of this movement graph is then used to calculate
 830 proposed values for Pgain, Igain and Dgain, and insert them into the
 831 HAL model to use by the pid controller.  The auto tuned settings are
 832 not great, but htye work a lot better than the values I had been able
 833 to cook up on my own, at least for the horizontal X and Y axis.  But I
 834 had to use very small <tt>tune-effort<tt> values, as my motor
 835 controllers error out if the voltage change too quickly.  I've been
 836 less lucky with the Z axis, which is moving a heavy object up and
 837 down, and seem to confuse the algorithm.  The Z axis movement became a
 838 lot better when I introduced a <tt>bias</tt> value to counter the
 839 gravitational drag, but I will have to work a lot more on the Z axis
 840 PID values.</p>
 841
 842 <p>Armed with this knowledge, it is time to look at how to do the
 843 tuning.  Lets say the HAL configuration in question load the PID
 844 component for X, Y and Z like this:</p>
 845
 846 <blockquote><pre>
 847 loadrt pid names=pid.x,pid.y,pid.z
 848 </pre></blockquote>
 849
 850 <p>Armed with the new and improved at_pid component, the new line will
 851 look like this:</p>
 852
 853 <blockquote><pre>
 854 loadrt at_pid names=pid.x,pid.y,pid.z
 855 </pre></blockquote>
 856
 857 <p>The rest of the HAL setup can stay the same.  This work because the
 858 components are referenced by name.  If the component had used count=3
 859 instead, all use of pid.# had to be changed to at_pid.#.</p>
 860
 861 <p>To start tuning the X axis, move the axis to the middle of its
 862 range, to make sure it do not hit anything when it start moving back
 863 and forth.  Next, set the <tt>tune-effort</tt> to a low number in the
 864 output range.  I used 0.1 as my initial value.  Next, assign 1 to the
 865 <tt>tune-mode</tt> value. Note, this will disable the pid controlling
 866 part and feed 0 to the output pin, which in my case initially caused a
 867 lot of drift.  In my case it proved to be a good idea with X and Y to
 868 tune the motor driver to make sure 0 voltage stopped the motor
 869 rotation.  On the other hand, for the Z axis this proved to be a bad
 870 idea, so it will depend on your setup.  It might help to set the
 871 <tt>bias</tt> value to a output value that reduce or eliminate the
 872 axis drift.  Finally, after setting <tt>tune-mode</tt>, set
 873 <tt>tune-start</tt> to 1 to activate the auto tuning.  If all go well,
 874 your axis will vibrate for a few seconds and when it is done, new
 875 values for Pgain, Igain and Dgain will be active.  To test them,
 876 change <tt>tune-mode</tt> back to 0.  Note that this might cause the
 877 machine to suddenly jerk as it bring the axis back to its commanded
 878 position, which it might have drifted away from during tuning.  To
 879 summarize with some halcmd lines:</p>
 880
 881 <blockquote><pre>
 882 setp pid.x.tune-effort 0.1
 883 setp pid.x.tune-mode 1
 884 setp pid.x.tune-start 1
 885 # wait for the tuning to complete
 886 setp pid.x.tune-mode 0
 887 </pre></blockquote>
 888
 889 <p>After doing this task quite a few times while trying to figure out
 890 how to properly tune the PID controllers on the machine in, I decided
 891 to figure out if this process could be automated, and wrote a script
 892 to do the entire tuning process from power on.  The end result will
 893 ensure the machine is powered on and ready to run, home all axis if it
 894 is not already done, check that the extra tuning pins are available,
 895 move the axis to its mid point, run the auto tuning and re-enable the
 896 pid controller when it is done.  It can be run several times.  Check
 897 out the
 898 <a href="https://github.com/SebKuzminsky/MazakVQC1540/blob/bon-dev/scripts/run-auto-pid-tuner">run-auto-pid-tuner</a>
 899 script on github if you want to learn how it is done.</p>
 900
 901 <p>My hope is that this little adventure can inspire someone who know
 902 more about motor PID controller tuning can implement even better
 903 algorithms for automatic PID tuning in LinuxCNC, making life easier
 904 for both me and all the others that want to use LinuxCNC but lack the
 905 in depth knowledge needed to tune PID controllers well.</p>
 906
 907 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 908 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 909 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 910
 911       </div>
 912       <div class="tags">
 913
 914
 915         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
 916
 917
 918       </div>
 919     </div>
 920     <div class="padding"></div>
 921
 922     <div class="entry">
 923       <div class="title">
 924         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LinuxCNC_translators_life_just_got_a_bit_easier.html">LinuxCNC translators life just got a bit easier</a>
 925       </div>
 926       <div class="date">
 927          3rd June 2022
 928       </div>
 929       <div class="body">
 930         <p>Back in oktober last year, when I started looking at the
 931 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxCNC">LinuxCNC</a> system, I
 932 proposed to change the documentation build system make life easier for
 933 translators.  The original system consisted of independently written
 934 documentation files for each language, with no automated way to track
 935 changes done in other translations and no help for the translators to
 936 know how much was left to translated.  By using
 937 <a href="https://po4a.org/">the po4a system</a> to generate POT and PO
 938 files from the English documentation, this can be improved.  A small
 939 team of LinuxCNC contributors got together and today our labour
 940 finally payed off.  Since a few hours ago, it is now possible to
 941 translate <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/linuxcnc/">the
 942 LinuxCNC documentation on Weblate</a>, alongside the program itself.</p>
 943
 944 <p>The effort to migrate the documentation to use po4a has been both
 945 slow and frustrating.  I am very happy we finally made it.</p>
 946
 947 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 948 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 949 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 950
 951       </div>
 952       <div class="tags">
 953
 954
 955         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
 956
 957
 958       </div>
 959     </div>
 960     <div class="padding"></div>
 961
 962     <div class="entry">
 963       <div class="title">
 964         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/geteltorito_make_CD_firmware_upgrades_a_breeze.html">geteltorito make CD firmware upgrades a breeze</a>
 965       </div>
 966       <div class="date">
 967         20th April 2022
 968       </div>
 969       <div class="body">
 970         <p>Recently I wanted to upgrade the firmware of my thinkpad, and
 971 located the firmware download page from Lenovo (which annoyingly do
 972 not allow access via Tor, forcing me to hand them more personal
 973 information that I would like).  The
 974 <a href="https://support.lenovo.com/no/en/search?query=thinkpad firmware bios upgrade iso&SearchType=Customer search&searchLocation=Masthead">download
 975 from Lenovo</a> is a bootable ISO image, which is a bit of a problem
 976 when all I got available is a USB memory stick.  I tried booting the
 977 ISO as a USB stick, but this did not work.  But genisoimage came to
 978 the rescue.</p>
 979
 980 <P>The geteltorito program in
 981 <a href="http://tracker.debian.org/cdrkit">the genisoimage binary
 982 package</a> is able to convert the bootable ISO image to a bootable
 983 USB stick using a simple command line recipe, which I then can write
 984 to the most recently inserted USB stick:</p>
 985
 986 <blockquote><pre>
 987 geteltorito -o usbstick.img lenovo-firmware.iso
 988 sudo dd bs=10M if=usbstick.img of=$(ls -tr /dev/sd?|tail -1)
 989 </pre></blockquote>
 990
 991 <p>This USB stick booted the firmware upgrader just fine, and in a few
 992 minutes my machine had the latest and greatest BIOS firmware in place.</p>
 993
 994       </div>
 995       <div class="tags">
 996
 997
 998         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 999
1000
1001       </div>
1002     </div>
1003     <div class="padding"></div>
1004
1005     <div class="entry">
1006       <div class="title">
1007         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Run_your_industrial_metal_working_machine_using_Debian_.html">Run your industrial metal working machine using Debian?</a>
1008       </div>
1009       <div class="date">
1010          2nd March 2022
1011       </div>
1012       <div class="body">
1013         <p>After many months of hard work by the good people involved in
1014 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxCNC">LinuxCNC</a>, the
1015 system was accepted Sunday
1016 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/linuxcnc">into Debian</a>.
1017 Once it was available from Debian, I was surprised to discover from
1018 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=linuxcnc">its
1019 popularity-contest numbers</a> that people have been reporting its use
1020 since 2012.  <a href="http://linuxcnc.org/">Its project site</a> might
1021 be a good place to check out, but sadly is not working when visiting
1022 via Tor.</p>
1023
1024 <p>But what is LinuxCNC, you are probably wondering?  Perhaps a
1025 Wikipedia quote is in place?</p>
1026
1027 <blockquote>
1028 "LinuxCNC is a software system for numerical control of
1029 machines such as milling machines, lathes, plasma cutters, routers,
1030 cutting machines, robots and hexapods. It can control up to 9 axes or
1031 joints of a CNC machine using G-code (RS-274NGC) as input. It has
1032 several GUIs suited to specific kinds of usage (touch screen,
1033 interactive development)."
1034 </blockquote>
1035
1036 <p>It can even control 3D printers.  And even though the Wikipedia
1037 page indicate that it can only work with hard real time kernel
1038 features, it can also work with the user space soft real time features
1039 provided by the Debian kernel.
1040 <a href="https://github.com/linuxcnc/linuxcnc">The source code</a> is
1041 available from Github.  The last few months I've been involved in the
1042 translation setup for the program and documentation.  Translators are
1043 most welcome to
1044 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/engage/linuxcnc/">join the
1045 effort</a> using Weblate.</p>
1046
1047 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1048 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1049 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1050
1051       </div>
1052       <div class="tags">
1053
1054
1055         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1056
1057
1058       </div>
1059     </div>
1060     <div class="padding"></div>
1061
1062     <div class="entry">
1063       <div class="title">
1064         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_still_an_excellent_choice_for_Lego_builders.html">Debian still an excellent choice for Lego builders</a>
1065       </div>
1066       <div class="date">
1067         24th October 2021
1068       </div>
1069       <div class="body">
1070         <p>The Debian Lego team saw a lot of activity the last few weeks.  All
1071 the packages under the team umbrella has been updated to fix
1072 packaging, lintian issues and BTS reports.  In addition, a new and
1073 inspiring team member appeared on both the
1074 <a href="https://alioth-lists.debian.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debian-lego-team">debian-lego-team
1075 Team mailing list</a> and
1076 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC channel
1077 #debian-lego</a>.  If you are interested in Lego CAD design and LEGO
1078 Mindstorms programming, check out the
1079 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">team wiki page</a> to
1080 see what Debian can offer the Lego enthusiast.</p>
1081
1082 <p>Patches has been sent upstream, causing new upstream releases, one
1083 even the first one in more than ten years, and old upstreams was
1084 released with new ones.  There are still a lot of work left, and the
1085 team welcome more members to help us make sure Debian is the Linux
1086 distribution of choice for Lego builders.  If you want to contribute,
1087 join us in the IRC channel and become part of
1088 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/debian-lego-team/">the team on
1089 Salsa</a>.</p>
1090
1091 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1092 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1093 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1094
1095       </div>
1096       <div class="tags">
1097
1098
1099         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1100
1101
1102       </div>
1103     </div>
1104     <div class="padding"></div>
1105
1106     <div class="entry">
1107       <div class="title">
1108         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Six_complete_translations_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_for_Buster.html">Six complete translations of The Debian Administrator's Handbook for Buster</a>
1109       </div>
1110       <div class="date">
1111          5th July 2021
1112       </div>
1113       <div class="body">
1114         <p>I am happy observe that the <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The
1115 Debian Administrator's Handbook</a> is available in six languages now.
1116 I am not sure which one of these are completely proof read, but the
1117 complete book is available in these languages:
1118
1119 <ul>
1120
1121 <li>English</li>
1122 <li>Norwegian Bokmål</li>
1123 <li>German</li>
1124 <li>Indonesian</li>
1125 <li>Brazil Portuguese</li>
1126 <li>Spanish</li>
1127
1128 </ul>
1129
1130 <p>This is the list of languages more than 70% complete, in other
1131 words with not too much left to do:</p>
1132
1133 <ul>
1134
1135 <li>Chinese (Simplified) - 90%</li>
1136 <li>French - 79%</li>
1137 <li>Italian - 79%</li>
1138 <li>Japanese - 77%</li>
1139 <li>Arabic (Morocco) - 75%</li>
1140 <li>Persian - 71%</li>
1141
1142 </ul>
1143
1144 <p>I wonder how long it will take to bring these to 100%.</p>
1145
1146 <p>Then there is the list of languages about halfway done:</p>
1147
1148 <ul>
1149
1150 <li>Russian - 63%</li>
1151 <li>Swedish - 53%</li>
1152 <li>Chinese (Traditional) - 46%</li>
1153 <li>Catalan - 45%</li>
1154
1155 </ul>
1156
1157 <p>Several are on to a good start:</p>
1158
1159 <ul>
1160
1161 <li>Dutch - 26%</li>
1162 <li>Vietnamese - 25%</li>
1163 <li>Polish - 23%</li>
1164 <li>Czech - 22%</li>
1165 <li>Turkish - 18%</li>
1166
1167 </ul>
1168
1169 <p>Finally, there are the ones just getting started:</p>
1170
1171 <ul>
1172
1173 <li>Korean - 4%</li>
1174 <li>Croatian - 2%</li>
1175 <li>Greek - 2%</li>
1176 <li>Danish - 1%</li>
1177 <li>Romanian - 1%</li>
1178
1179 </ul>
1180
1181 <p>If you want to help provide a Debian instruction book in your own
1182 language, visit
1183 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/#languages">Weblate</a>
1184 to contribute to the translations.</p>
1185
1186 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1187 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1188 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1189
1190       </div>
1191       <div class="tags">
1192
1193
1194         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1195
1196
1197       </div>
1198     </div>
1199     <div class="padding"></div>
1200
1201     <div class="entry">
1202       <div class="title">
1203         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Latest_Jami_back_in_Debian_Testing__and_scriptable_using_dbus.html">Latest Jami back in Debian Testing, and scriptable using dbus</a>
1204       </div>
1205       <div class="date">
1206         12th January 2021
1207       </div>
1208       <div class="body">
1209         <p>After a lot of hard work by its maintainer Alexandre Viau and
1210 others, the decentralized communication platform
1211 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jami_(software)">Jami</a>
1212 (earlier known as Ring), managed to get
1213 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">its latest version</a>
1214 into Debian Testing.  Several of its dependencies has caused build and
1215 propagation problems, which all seem to be solved now.</p>
1216
1217 <p>In addition to the fact that Jami is decentralized, similar to how
1218 bittorrent is decentralized, I first of all like how it is not
1219 connected to external IDs like phone numbers.  This allow me to set up
1220 computers to send me notifications using Jami without having to find
1221 get a phone number for each computer.  Automatic notification via Jami
1222 is also made trivial thanks to the provided client side API (as a DBus
1223 service).  Here is my bourne shell script demonstrating how to let any
1224 system send a message to any Jami address.  It will create a new
1225 identity before sending the message, if no Jami identity exist
1226 already:</p>
1227
1228 <p><pre>
1229 #!/bin/sh
1230 #
1231 # Usage: $0 <jami-address> <message>
1232 #
1233 # Send <message> to <jami-address>, create local jami account if
1234 # missing.
1235 #
1236 # License: GPL v2 or later at your choice
1237 # Author: Petter Reinholdtsen
1238
1239
1240 if [ -z "$HOME" ] ; then
1241     echo "error: missing \$HOME, required for dbus to work"
1242     exit 1
1243 fi
1244
1245 # First, get dbus running if not already running
1246 DBUSLAUNCH=/usr/bin/dbus-launch
1247 PIDFILE=/run/asterisk/dbus-session.pid
1248 if [ -e $PIDFILE ] ; then
1249     . $PIDFILE
1250     if ! kill -0 $DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID 2>/dev/null ; then
1251         unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
1252     fi
1253 fi
1254 if [ -z "$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS" ] && [ -x "$DBUSLAUNCH" ]; then
1255     DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS="unix:path=$HOME/.dbus"
1256     dbus-daemon --session --address="$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS" --nofork --nopidfile --syslog-only < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 3>&1 &
1257     DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID=$!
1258     (
1259         echo DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID=$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID
1260         echo DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=\""$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS"\"
1261         echo export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
1262     ) > $PIDFILE
1263     . $PIDFILE
1264 fi &
1265
1266 dringop() {
1267     part="$1"; shift
1268     op="$1"; shift
1269     dbus-send --session \
1270         --dest="cx.ring.Ring" /cx/ring/Ring/$part cx.ring.Ring.$part.$op $*
1271 }
1272
1273 dringopreply() {
1274     part="$1"; shift
1275     op="$1"; shift
1276     dbus-send --session --print-reply \
1277         --dest="cx.ring.Ring" /cx/ring/Ring/$part cx.ring.Ring.$part.$op $*
1278 }
1279
1280 firstaccount() {
1281     dringopreply ConfigurationManager getAccountList | \
1282       grep string | awk -F'"' '{print $2}' | head -n 1
1283 }
1284
1285 account=$(firstaccount)
1286
1287 if [ -z "$account" ] ; then
1288     echo "Missing local account, trying to create it"
1289     dringop ConfigurationManager addAccount \
1290       dict:string:string:"Account.type","RING","Account.videoEnabled","false"
1291     account=$(firstaccount)
1292     if [ -z "$account" ] ; then
1293         echo "unable to create local account"
1294         exit 1
1295     fi
1296 fi
1297
1298 # Not using dringopreply to ensure $2 can contain spaces
1299 dbus-send --print-reply --session \
1300   --dest=cx.ring.Ring \
1301   /cx/ring/Ring/ConfigurationManager \
1302   cx.ring.Ring.ConfigurationManager.sendTextMessage \
1303   string:"$account" string:"$1" \
1304   dict:string:string:"text/plain","$2"
1305 </pre></p>
1306
1307 <p>If you want to check it out yourself, visit the
1308 <a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami system project page</a> to learn
1309 more, and install the latest Jami client from Debian Unstable or
1310 Testing.</p>
1311
1312 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1313 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1314 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1315
1316       </div>
1317       <div class="tags">
1318
1319
1320         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1321
1322
1323       </div>
1324     </div>
1325     <div class="padding"></div>
1326
1327     <div class="entry">
1328       <div class="title">
1329         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Buster_based_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Buster based Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
1330       </div>
1331       <div class="date">
1332         20th October 2020
1333       </div>
1334       <div class="body">
1335         <p align="center"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2020-10-20-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.jpeg" width="60%"/></p>
1336
1337 <p>I am happy to report that we finally made it!  Norwegian Bokmål
1338 became the first translation published on paper of the new Buster
1339 based edition of "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian
1340 Administrator's Handbook</a>".  The print proof reading copy arrived
1341 some days ago, and it looked good, so now the book is approved for
1342 general distribution.  This updated paperback edition <a
1343 href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian">is available from
1344 lulu.com</a>.  The book is also available for download in electronic
1345 form as PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket, and can also be
1346 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">read online</a>.</p>
1347
1348 <p>I am very happy to wrap up this Creative Common licensed project,
1349 which concludes several months of work by several volunteers. The
1350 number of Linux related books published in Norwegian are few, and I
1351 really hope this one will gain many readers, as it is packed with deep
1352 knowledge on Linux and the Debian ecosystem.  The book will be
1353 available for various Internet book stores like Amazon and Barnes &
1354 Noble soon, but I recommend buying
1355 "<a href="https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/roland-mas-and-rapha%C3%ABl-hertzog/h%C3%A5ndbok-for-debian-administratoren/paperback/product-9j7qwq.html">Håndbok
1356 for Debian-administratoren</a>" directly from the source at Lulu.
1357
1358 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1359 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1360 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1361
1362       </div>
1363       <div class="tags">
1364
1365
1366         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1367
1368
1369       </div>
1370     </div>
1371     <div class="padding"></div>
1372
1373     <div class="entry">
1374       <div class="title">
1375         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Buster_update_of_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_almost_done.html">Buster update of Norwegian Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook almost done</a>
1376       </div>
1377       <div class="date">
1378         11th September 2020
1379       </div>
1380       <div class="body">
1381         <p>Thanks to the good work of several volunteers, the updated edition
1382 of the Norwegian translation for
1383 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
1384 Handbook</a>" is now almost completed.  After many months of proof
1385 reading, I consider the proof reading complete enough for us to move
1386 to the next step, and have asked for the print version to be prepared
1387 and sent of to the print on demand service lulu.com.  While it is
1388 still not to late if you find any incorrect translations on
1389 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/languages/nb_NO/debian-handbook/">the
1390 hosted Weblate service</a>, but it will be soon. :) You can check out
1391 <a href=" https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">the Buster
1392 edition on the web</a> until the print edition is ready.</p>
1393
1394 <p>The book will be for sale on lulu.com and various web book stores,
1395 with links available from the web site for the book linked to above.
1396 I hope a lot of readers find it useful.</p>
1397
1398 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1399 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1400 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1401
1402       </div>
1403       <div class="tags">
1404
1405
1406         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1407
1408
1409       </div>
1410     </div>
1411     <div class="padding"></div>
1412
1413     <div class="entry">
1414       <div class="title">
1415         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Working_on_updated_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Working on updated Norwegian Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
1416       </div>
1417       <div class="date">
1418          4th July 2020
1419       </div>
1420       <div class="body">
1421         <p>Three years ago, the first Norwegian Bokmål edition of
1422 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
1423 Handbook</a>" was published.  This was based on Debian Jessie.  Now a
1424 new and updated version based on Buster is getting ready.  Work on the
1425 updated Norwegian Bokmål edition has been going on for a few months
1426 now, and yesterday, we reached the first mile stone, with 100% of the
1427 texts being translated.  A lot of proof reading remains, of course,
1428 but a major step towards a new edition has been taken.</p>
1429
1430 <p>The book is translated by volunteers, and we would love to get some
1431 help with the proof reading.  The translation uses
1432 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/languages/nb_NO/debian-handbook/">the
1433 hosted Weblate service</a>, and we welcome everyone to have a look and
1434 submit improvements and suggestions.  There is also a proof readers
1435 PDF available on request, get in touch if you want to help out that
1436 way.</p>
1437
1438 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1439 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1440 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1441
1442       </div>
1443       <div class="tags">
1444
1445
1446         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1447
1448
1449       </div>
1450     </div>
1451     <div class="padding"></div>
1452
1453     <div class="entry">
1454       <div class="title">
1455         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Secure_Socket_API___a_simple_and_powerful_approach_for_TLS_support_in_software.html">Secure Socket API - a simple and powerful approach for TLS support in software</a>
1456       </div>
1457       <div class="date">
1458          6th June 2020
1459       </div>
1460       <div class="body">
1461         <p>As a member of the <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix
1462 User Group</a>, I have the pleasure of receiving the
1463 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a> magazine
1464 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/">;login:</a>
1465 several times a year.  I rarely have time to read all the articles,
1466 but try to at least skim through them all as there is a lot of nice
1467 knowledge passed on there.  I even carry the latest issue with me most
1468 of the time to try to get through all the articles when I have a few
1469 spare minutes.</p>
1470
1471 <p>The other day I came across a nice article titled
1472 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/winter2018/oneill">The
1473 Secure Socket API: TLS as an Operating System Service</a>" with a
1474 marvellous idea I hope can make it all the way into the POSIX standard.
1475 The idea is as simple as it is powerful.  By introducing a new
1476 socket() option IPPROTO_TLS to use TLS, and a system wide service to
1477 handle setting up TLS connections, one both make it trivial to add TLS
1478 support to any program currently using the POSIX socket API, and gain
1479 system wide control over certificates, TLS versions and encryption
1480 systems used.  Instead of doing this:</p>
1481
1482 <p><blockquote><pre>
1483 int socket = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
1484 </pre></blockquote></p>
1485
1486 <p>the program code would be doing this:<p>
1487
1488 <p><blockquote><pre>
1489 int socket = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TLS);
1490 </pre></blockquote></p>
1491
1492 <p>According to the ;login: article, converting a C program to use TLS
1493 would normally modify only 5-10 lines in the code, which is amazing
1494 when compared to using for example the OpenSSL API.</p>
1495
1496 <p>The project has set up the
1497 <a href="https://securesocketapi.org/">https://securesocketapi.org/</a>
1498 web site to spread the idea, and the code for a kernel module and the
1499 associated system daemon is available from two github repositories:
1500 <a href="https://github.com/markoneill/ssa">ssa</a> and
1501 <a href="https://github.com/markoneill/ssa-daemon">ssa-daemon</a>.
1502 Unfortunately there is no explicit license information with the code,
1503 so its copyright status is unclear.  A
1504 <a href="https://github.com/markoneill/ssa/issues/2">request to solve
1505 this</a> about it has been unsolved since 2018-08-17.</p>
1506
1507 <p>I love the idea of extending socket() to gain TLS support, and
1508 understand why it is an advantage to implement this as a kernel module
1509 and system wide service daemon, but can not help to think that it
1510 would be a lot easier to get projects to move to this way of setting
1511 up TLS if it was done with a user space approach where programs
1512 wanting to use this API approach could just link with a wrapper
1513 library.</p>
1514
1515 <p>I recommend you check out this simple and powerful approach to more
1516 secure network connections. :)</p>
1517
1518 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1519 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1520 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1521
1522       </div>
1523       <div class="tags">
1524
1525
1526         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
1527
1528
1529       </div>
1530     </div>
1531     <div class="padding"></div>
1532
1533     <div class="entry">
1534       <div class="title">
1535         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jami_as_a_Zoom_client__a_trick_for_password_protected_rooms___.html">Jami as a Zoom client, a trick for password protected rooms...</a>
1536       </div>
1537       <div class="date">
1538          8th May 2020
1539       </div>
1540       <div class="body">
1541         <p>Half a year ago,
1542 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jami_Ring__finally_functioning_peer_to_peer_communication_client.html">I
1543 wrote</a> about <a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami communication
1544 client</a>, capable of peer-to-peer encrypted communication.  It
1545 handle both messages, audio and video.  It uses distributed hash
1546 tables instead of central infrastructure to connect its users to each
1547 other, which in my book is a plus.  I mentioned briefly that it could
1548 also work as a SIP client, which came in handy when the higher
1549 educational sector in Norway started to promote Zoom as its video
1550 conferencing solution.  I am reluctant to use the official Zoom client
1551 software, due to their <a href="https://zoom.us/terms">copyright
1552 license clauses</a> prohibiting users to reverse engineer (for example
1553 to check the security) and benchmark it, and thus prefer to connect to
1554 Zoom meetings with free software clients.</p>
1555
1556 <p>Jami worked OK as a SIP client to Zoom as long as there was no
1557 password set on the room.  The Jami daemon leak memory like crazy
1558 (approximately 1 GiB a minute) when I am connected to the video
1559 conference, so I had to restart the client every 7-10 minutes, which
1560 is not great.  I tried to get other SIP Linux clients to work
1561 without success, so I decided I would have to live with this wart
1562 until someone managed to fix the leak in the dring code base.  But
1563 another problem showed up once the rooms were password protected.  I
1564 could not get my dial tone signaling through from Jami to Zoom, and
1565 dial tone signaling is used to enter the password when connecting to
1566 Zoom.  I tried a lot of different permutations with my Jami and
1567 Asterisk setup to try to figure out why the signaling did not get
1568 through, only to finally discover that the fundamental problem seem to
1569 be that Zoom is simply not able to receive dial tone signaling when
1570 connecting via SIP.  There seem to be nothing wrong with the Jami and
1571 Asterisk end, it is simply broken in the Zoom end.  I got help from a
1572 very skilled VoIP engineer figuring out this last part.  And being a
1573 very skilled engineer, he was also able to locate a solution for me.
1574 Or to be exact, a workaround that solve my initial problem of
1575 connecting to password protected Zoom rooms using Jami.</p>
1576
1577 <p>So, how do you do this, I am sure you are wondering by now.  The
1578 trick is already
1579 <a href="https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/202405539-H-323-SIP-Room-Connector-Dial-Strings#sip">documented
1580 from Zoom</a>, and it is to modify the SIP address to include the room
1581 password.  What is most surprising about this is that the
1582 automatically generated email from Zoom with instructions on how to
1583 connect via SIP do not mention this.  The SIP address to use normally
1584 consist of the room ID (a number), an @ character and the IP address
1585 of the Zoom SIP gateway.  But Zoom understand a lot more than just the
1586 room ID in front of the at sign.  The format is "<tt>[Meeting
1587 ID].[Password].[Layout].[Host Key]</tt>", and you can here see how you
1588 can both enter password, control the layout (full screen, active
1589 presence and gallery) and specify the host key to start the meeting.
1590 The full SIP address entered into Jami to provide the password will
1591 then look like this (all using made up numbers):</p>
1592
1593 <p><blockquote>
1594 <tt>sip:657837644.522827@192.168.169.170</tt>
1595 </blockquote></p>
1596
1597 <p>Now if only jami would reduce its memory usage, I could even
1598 recommend this setup to others. :)</p>
1599
1600 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1601 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1602 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1603
1604       </div>
1605       <div class="tags">
1606
1607
1608         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1609
1610
1611       </div>
1612     </div>
1613     <div class="padding"></div>
1614
1615     <div class="entry">
1616       <div class="title">
1617         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/GnuCOBOL__a_free_platform_to_learn_and_use_COBOL___nice_free_software.html">GnuCOBOL, a free platform to learn and use COBOL - nice free software</a>
1618       </div>
1619       <div class="date">
1620         29th April 2020
1621       </div>
1622       <div class="body">
1623         <p>The curiosity got the better of me when
1624 <a href="https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/04/06/1424246/new-jersey-desperately-needs-cobol-programmers">Slashdot
1625 reported</a> that New Jersey was desperately looking for
1626 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL">COBOL</a> programmers,
1627 and a few days later it was reported that
1628 <a href="https://onezero.medium.com/ibm-rallies-cobol-engineers-to-save-overloaded-unemployment-systems-eeadf13eddce">IBM
1629 tried to locate COBOL programmers</a>.</p>
1630
1631 <p>I thus decided to have a look at free software alternatives to
1632 learn COBOL, and had the pleasure to find
1633 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/open-cobol/">GnuCOBOL</a> was
1634 already <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gnucobol">in
1635 Debian</a>.  It used to be called Open Cobol, and is a "compiler"
1636 transforming COBOL code to C or C++ before giving it to GCC or Visual
1637 Studio to build binaries.</p>
1638
1639 <p>I managed to get in touch with upstream, and was impressed with the
1640 quick response, and also was happy to see a new Debian maintainer
1641 taking over when the original one recently asked to be replaced.  A
1642 new Debian upload was done as recently as yesterday.</p>
1643
1644 <p>Using the Debian package, I was able to follow a simple COBOL
1645 introduction and make and run simple COBOL programs.  It was fun to
1646 learn a new programming language.  If you want to test for yourself,
1647 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuCOBOL">the GnuCOBOL Wikipedia
1648 page</a> have a few simple examples to get you startet.</p>
1649
1650 <p>As I do not have much experience with COBOL, I do not know how
1651 standard compliant it is, but it claim to pass most tests from COBOL
1652 test suite, which sound good to me.  It is nice to know it is possible
1653 to learn COBOL using software without any usage restrictions, and I am
1654 very happy such nice free software project as this is available.  If
1655 you as me is curious about COBOL, check it out.</p>
1656
1657 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1658 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1659 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1660
1661       </div>
1662       <div class="tags">
1663
1664
1665         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
1666
1667
1668       </div>
1669     </div>
1670     <div class="padding"></div>
1671
1672     <div class="entry">
1673       <div class="title">
1674         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jami_Ring__finally_functioning_peer_to_peer_communication_client.html">Jami/Ring, finally functioning peer to peer communication client</a>
1675       </div>
1676       <div class="date">
1677         19th June 2019
1678       </div>
1679       <div class="body">
1680         <p>Some years ago, in 2016, I
1681 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">wrote
1682 for the first time about</a> the Ring peer to peer messaging system.
1683 It would provide messaging without any central server coordinating the
1684 system and without requiring all users to register a phone number or
1685 own a mobile phone.  Back then, I could not get it to work, and put it
1686 aside until it had seen more development.  A few days ago I decided to
1687 give it another try, and am happy to report that this time I am able
1688 to not only send and receive messages, but also place audio and video
1689 calls.  But only if UDP is not blocked into your network.</p>
1690
1691 <p>The Ring system changed name earlier this year to
1692 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jami_(software)">Jami</a>.  I
1693 tried doing web search for 'ring' when I discovered it for the first
1694 time, and can only applaud this change as it is impossible to find
1695 something called Ring among the noise of other uses of that word.  Now
1696 you can search for 'jami' and this client and
1697 <a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami system</a> is the first hit at
1698 least on duckduckgo.</p>
1699
1700 <p>Jami will by default encrypt messages as well as audio and video
1701 calls, and try to send them directly between the communicating parties
1702 if possible.  If this proves impossible (for example if both ends are
1703 behind NAT), it will use a central SIP TURN server maintained by the
1704 Jami project.  Jami can also be a normal SIP client.  If the SIP
1705 server is unencrypted, the audio and video calls will also be
1706 unencrypted.  This is as far as I know the only case where Jami will
1707 do anything without encryption.</p>
1708
1709 <p>Jami is available for several platforms: Linux, Windows, MacOSX,
1710 Android, iOS, and Android TV.  It is included in Debian already.  Jami
1711 also work for those using F-Droid without any Google connections,
1712 while Signal do not.
1713 <a href="https://git.jami.net/savoirfairelinux/ring-project/wikis/technical/Protocol">The
1714 protocol</a> is described in the Ring project wiki.  The system uses a
1715 distributed hash table (DHT) system (similar to BitTorrent) running
1716 over UDP.  On one of the networks I use, I discovered Jami failed to
1717 work.  I tracked this down to the fact that incoming UDP packages
1718 going to ports 1-49999 were blocked, and the DHT would pick a random
1719 port and end up in the low range most of the time.  After talking to
1720 the developers, I solved this by enabling the dhtproxy in the
1721 settings, thus using TCP to talk to a central DHT proxy instead of
1722
1723 peering directly with others.  I've been told the developers are
1724 working on allowing DHT to use TCP to avoid this problem.  I also ran
1725 into a problem when trying to talk to the version of Ring included in
1726 Debian Stable (Stretch).  Apparently the protocol changed between
1727 beta2 and the current version, making these clients incompatible.
1728 Hopefully the protocol will not be made incompatible in the
1729 future.</p>
1730
1731 <p>It is worth noting that while looking at Jami and its features, I
1732 came across another communication platform I have not tested yet.  The
1733 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tox_(protocol)">Tox protocol</a>
1734 and <a href="https://tox.chat/">family of Tox clients</a>.  It might
1735 become the topic of a future blog post.</p>
1736
1737 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1738 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1739 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1740
1741       </div>
1742       <div class="tags">
1743
1744
1745         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1746
1747
1748       </div>
1749     </div>
1750     <div class="padding"></div>
1751
1752     <div class="entry">
1753       <div class="title">
1754         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Strategispillet_Unknown_Horizons_n__tilgjengelig_p__bokm_l.html">Strategispillet Unknown Horizons nå tilgjengelig på bokmål</a>
1755       </div>
1756       <div class="date">
1757         23rd January 2019
1758       </div>
1759       <div class="body">
1760         <p>I høst ble jeg inspirert til å bidra til oversettelsen av
1761 <a href="http://unknown-horizons.org/">strategispillet Unknown
1762 Horizons</a>, og oversatte de nesten 200 strengene i prosjektet til
1763 bokmål.  Deretter har jeg gått å ventet på at det kom en ny utgave som
1764 inneholdt disse oversettelsene.  Nå er endelig ventetiden over.  Den
1765 nye versjonen kom på nyåret, og ble
1766 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/unknown-horizons">lastet opp i
1767 Debian</a> for noen få dager siden.  I går kveld fikk jeg testet det ut, og
1768 må innrømme at oversettelsene fungerer fint.  Fant noen få tekster som
1769 måtte justeres, men ikke noe alvorlig.  Har oppdatert
1770 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/uh/">oversettelsen på
1771 Weblate</a>, slik at neste utgave vil være enda bedre. :)</p>
1772
1773 <p>Spillet er et ressursstyringsspill ala Civilization, og er morsomt
1774 å spille for oss som liker slikt. :)</p>
1775
1776 <p>Som vanlig, hvis du bruker Bitcoin og ønsker å vise din støtte til
1777 det jeg driver med, setter jeg pris på om du sender Bitcoin-donasjoner
1778 til min adresse
1779 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.
1780 Merk, betaling med bitcoin er ikke anonymt. :)</p>
1781
1782       </div>
1783       <div class="tags">
1784
1785
1786         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
1787
1788
1789       </div>
1790     </div>
1791     <div class="padding"></div>
1792
1793     <div class="entry">
1794       <div class="title">
1795         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_got_everything_you_need_to_program_Micro_bit.html">Debian now got everything you need to program Micro:bit</a>
1796       </div>
1797       <div class="date">
1798         22nd January 2019
1799       </div>
1800       <div class="body">
1801         <p>I am amazed and very pleased to discover that since a few days ago,
1802 everything you need to program the <a href="https://microbit.org/">BBC
1803 micro:bit</a> is available from the Debian archive.  All this is
1804 thanks to the hard work of Nick Morrott and the Debian python
1805 packaging team.  The micro:bit project recommend the mu-editor to
1806 program the microcomputer, as this editor will take care of all the
1807 machinery required to injekt/flash micropython alongside the program
1808 into the micro:bit, as long as the pieces are available.</p>
1809
1810 <p>There are three main pieces involved.  The first to enter Debian
1811 was
1812 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/python-uflash">python-uflash</a>,
1813 which was accepted into the archive 2019-01-12.  The next one was
1814 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/mu-editor">mu-editor</a>, which
1815 showed up 2019-01-13.  The final and hardest part to to into the
1816 archive was
1817 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firmware-microbit-micropython">firmware-microbit-micropython</a>,
1818 which needed to get its build system and dependencies into Debian
1819 before it was accepted 2019-01-20.  The last one is already in Debian
1820 Unstable and should enter Debian Testing / Buster in three days.  This
1821 all allow any user of the micro:bit to get going by simply running
1822 'apt install mu-editor' when using Testing or Unstable, and once
1823 Buster is released as stable, all the users of Debian stable will be
1824 catered for.</p>
1825
1826 <p>As a minor final touch, I added rules to
1827 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">the isenkram
1828 package</a> for recognizing micro:bit and recommend the mu-editor
1829 package.  This make sure any user of the isenkram desktop daemon will
1830 get a popup suggesting to install mu-editor then the USB cable from
1831 the micro:bit is inserted for the first time.</p>
1832
1833 <p>This should make it easier to have fun.</p>
1834
1835 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1836 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1837 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1838
1839       </div>
1840       <div class="tags">
1841
1842
1843         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
1844
1845
1846       </div>
1847     </div>
1848     <div class="padding"></div>
1849
1850     <div class="entry">
1851       <div class="title">
1852         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Learn_to_program_with_Minetest_on_Debian.html">Learn to program with Minetest on Debian</a>
1853       </div>
1854       <div class="date">
1855         15th December 2018
1856       </div>
1857       <div class="body">
1858         <p>A fun way to learn how to program
1859 <a href="https://www.python.org/">Python</a> is to follow the
1860 instructions in the book
1861 "<a href="https://nostarch.com/programwithminecraft">Learn to program
1862 with Minecraft</a>", which introduces programming in Python to people
1863 who like to play with Minecraft.  The book uses a Python library to
1864 talk to a TCP/IP socket with an API accepting build instructions and
1865 providing information about the current players in a Minecraft world.
1866 The TCP/IP API was first created for the Minecraft implementation for
1867 Raspberry Pi, and has since been ported to some server versions of
1868 Minecraft.  The book contain recipes for those using Windows, MacOSX
1869 and Raspian.  But a little known fact is that you can follow the same
1870 recipes using the free software construction game
1871 <a href="https://minetest.net/">Minetest</a>.</p>
1872
1873 <p>There is <a href="https://github.com/sprintingkiwi/pycraft_mod">a
1874 Minetest module implementing the same API</a>, making it possible to
1875 use the Python programs coded to talk to Minecraft with Minetest too.
1876 I
1877 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new/minetest-mod-pycraft_0.20%2Bgit20180331.0376a0a%2Bdfsg-1.html">uploaded
1878 this module</a> to Debian two weeks ago, and as soon as it clears the
1879 FTP masters NEW queue, learning to program Python with Minetest on
1880 Debian will be a simple 'apt install' away.  The Debian package is
1881 maintained as part of the Debian Games team, and
1882 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/games-team/unfinished/minetest-mod-pycraft">the
1883 packaging rules</a> are currently located under 'unfinished' on
1884 Salsa.</p>
1885
1886 <p>You will most likely need to install several of the Minetest
1887 modules in Debian for the examples included with the library to work
1888 well, as there are several blocks used by the example scripts that are
1889 provided via modules in Minetest.  Without the required blocks, a
1890 simple stone block is used instead.  My initial testing with a analog
1891 clock did not get gold arms as instructed in the python library, but
1892 instead used stone arms.</p>
1893
1894 <p>I tried to find a way to add the API to the desktop version of
1895 Minecraft, but were unable to find any working recipes.  The
1896 <a href="https://www.epiphanydigest.com/tag/minecraft-python-api/">recipes</a>
1897 I <a href="https://github.com/kbsriram/mcpiapi">found</a> are only
1898 working with a standalone Minecraft server setup.  Are there any
1899 options to use with the normal desktop version?</p>
1900
1901 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1902 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1903 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1904
1905       </div>
1906       <div class="tags">
1907
1908
1909         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1910
1911
1912       </div>
1913     </div>
1914     <div class="padding"></div>
1915
1916     <div class="entry">
1917       <div class="title">
1918         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_an_official_MIME_type_for_patches_.html">Time for an official MIME type for patches?</a>
1919       </div>
1920       <div class="date">
1921          1st November 2018
1922       </div>
1923       <div class="body">
1924         <p>As part of my involvement in
1925 <a href="https://gitlab.com/OsloMet-ABI/nikita-noark5-core">the Nikita
1926 archive API project</a>, I've been importing a fairly large lump of
1927 emails into a test instance of the archive to see how well this would
1928 go.  I picked a subset of <a href="https://notmuchmail.org/">my
1929 notmuch email database</a>, all public emails sent to me via
1930 @lists.debian.org, giving me a set of around 216 000 emails to import.
1931 In the process, I had a look at the various attachments included in
1932 these emails, to figure out what to do with attachments, and noticed
1933 that one of the most common attachment formats do not have
1934 <a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">an
1935 official MIME type</a> registered with IANA/IETF.  The output from
1936 diff, ie the input for patch, is on the top 10 list of formats
1937 included in these emails.  At the moment people seem to use either
1938 text/x-patch or text/x-diff, but neither is officially registered.  It
1939 would be better if one official MIME type were registered and used
1940 everywhere.</p>
1941
1942 <p>To try to get one official MIME type for these files, I've brought
1943 up the topic on
1944 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/media-types">the
1945 media-types mailing list</a>.  If you are interested in discussion
1946 which MIME type to use as the official for patch files, or involved in
1947 making software using a MIME type for patches, perhaps you would like
1948 to join the discussion?</p>
1949
1950 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1951 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1952 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1953
1954       </div>
1955       <div class="tags">
1956
1957
1958         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/noark5">noark5</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
1959
1960
1961       </div>
1962     </div>
1963     <div class="padding"></div>
1964
1965     <div class="entry">
1966       <div class="title">
1967         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Google_Drive_sync_using_grive_in_Debian.html">Automatic Google Drive sync using grive in Debian</a>
1968       </div>
1969       <div class="date">
1970          4th October 2018
1971       </div>
1972       <div class="body">
1973         <p>A few days, I rescued a Windows victim over to Debian.  To try to
1974 rescue the remains, I helped set up automatic sync with Google Drive.
1975 I did not find any sensible Debian package handling this
1976 automatically, so I rebuild the grive2 source from
1977 <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/">the Ubuntu UPD8 PPA</a> to do the
1978 task and added a autostart desktop entry and a small shell script to
1979 run in the background while the user is logged in to do the sync.
1980 Here is a sketch of the setup for future reference.</p>
1981
1982 <p>I first created <tt>~/googledrive</tt>, entered the directory and
1983 ran '<tt>grive -a</tt>' to authenticate the machine/user.  Next, I
1984 created a autostart hook in <tt>~/.config/autostart/grive.desktop</tt>
1985 to start the sync when the user log in:</p>
1986
1987 <p><blockquote><pre>
1988 [Desktop Entry]
1989 Name=Google drive autosync
1990 Type=Application
1991 Exec=/home/user/bin/grive-sync
1992 </pre></blockquote></p>
1993
1994 <p>Finally, I wrote the <tt>~/bin/grive-sync</tt> script to sync
1995 ~/googledrive/ with the files in Google Drive.</p>
1996
1997 <p><blockquote><pre>
1998 #!/bin/sh
1999 set -e
2000 cd ~/
2001 cleanup() {
2002     if [ "$syncpid" ] ; then
2003         kill $syncpid
2004     fi
2005 }
2006 trap cleanup EXIT INT QUIT
2007 /usr/lib/grive/grive-sync.sh listen googledrive 2>&1 | sed "s%^%$0:%" &
2008 syncpdi=$!
2009 while true; do
2010     if ! xhost >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
2011         echo "no DISPLAY, exiting as the user probably logged out"
2012         exit 1
2013     fi
2014     if [ ! -e /run/user/1000/grive-sync.sh_googledrive ] ; then
2015         /usr/lib/grive/grive-sync.sh sync googledrive
2016     fi
2017     sleep 300
2018 done 2>&1 | sed "s%^%$0:%"
2019 </pre></blockquote></p>
2020
2021 <p>Feel free to use the setup if you want.  It can be assumed to be
2022 GNU GPL v2 licensed (or any later version, at your leisure), but I
2023 doubt this code is possible to claim copyright on.</p>
2024
2025 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2026 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2027 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2028
2029       </div>
2030       <div class="tags">
2031
2032
2033         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2034
2035
2036       </div>
2037     </div>
2038     <div class="padding"></div>
2039
2040     <div class="entry">
2041       <div class="title">
2042         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_the_Kodi_API_to_play_Youtube_videos.html">Using the Kodi API to play Youtube videos</a>
2043       </div>
2044       <div class="date">
2045          2nd September 2018
2046       </div>
2047       <div class="body">
2048         <p>I continue to explore my Kodi installation, and today I wanted to
2049 tell it to play a youtube URL I received in a chat, without having to
2050 insert search terms using the on-screen keyboard.  After searching the
2051 web for API access to the Youtube plugin and testing a bit, I managed
2052 to find a recipe that worked.  If you got a kodi instance with its API
2053 available from http://kodihost/jsonrpc, you can try the following to
2054 have check out a nice cover band.</p>
2055
2056 <p><blockquote><pre>curl --silent --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
2057   --data-binary '{ "id": 1, "jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "Player.Open",
2058   "params": {"item": { "file":
2059   "plugin://plugin.video.youtube/play/?video_id=LuRGVM9O0qg" } } }' \
2060   http://projector.local/jsonrpc</pre></blockquote></p>
2061
2062 <p>I've extended kodi-stream program to take a video source as its
2063 first argument.  It can now handle direct video links, youtube links
2064 and 'desktop' to stream my desktop to Kodi.  It is almost like a
2065 Chromecast. :)</p>
2066
2067 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2068 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2069 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2070
2071       </div>
2072       <div class="tags">
2073
2074
2075         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2076
2077
2078       </div>
2079     </div>
2080     <div class="padding"></div>
2081
2082     <div class="entry">
2083       <div class="title">
2084         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sharing_images_with_friends_and_family_using_RSS_and_EXIF_XMP_metadata.html">Sharing images with friends and family using RSS and EXIF/XMP metadata</a>
2085       </div>
2086       <div class="date">
2087         31st July 2018
2088       </div>
2089       <div class="body">
2090         <p>For a while now, I have looked for a sensible way to share images
2091 with my family using a self hosted solution, as it is unacceptable to
2092 place images from my personal life under the control of strangers
2093 working for data hoarders like Google or Dropbox.  The last few days I
2094 have drafted an approach that might work out, and I would like to
2095 share it with you.  I would like to publish images on a server under
2096 my control, and point some Internet connected display units using some
2097 free and open standard to the images I published.  As my primary
2098 language is not limited to ASCII, I need to store metadata using
2099 UTF-8.  Many years ago, I hoped to find a digital photo frame capable
2100 of reading a RSS feed with image references (aka using the
2101 &lt;enclosure&gt; RSS tag), but was unable to find a current supplier
2102 of such frames.  In the end I gave up that approach.</p>
2103
2104 <p>Some months ago, I discovered that
2105 <a href="https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/">XScreensaver</a> is able to
2106 read images from a RSS feed, and used it to set up a screen saver on
2107 my home info screen, showing images from the Daily images feed from
2108 NASA.  This proved to work well.  More recently I discovered that
2109 <a href="https://kodi.tv">Kodi</a> (both using
2110 <a href="https://www.openelec.tv/">OpenELEC</a> and
2111 <a href="https://libreelec.tv">LibreELEC</a>) provide the
2112 <a href="https://github.com/grinsted/script.screensaver.feedreader">Feedreader</a>
2113 screen saver capable of reading a RSS feed with images and news.  For
2114 fun, I used it this summer to test Kodi on my parents TV by hooking up
2115 a Raspberry PI unit with LibreELEC, and wanted to provide them with a
2116 screen saver showing selected pictures from my selection.</p>
2117
2118 <p>Armed with motivation and a test photo frame, I set out to generate
2119 a RSS feed for the Kodi instance.  I adjusted my <a
2120 href="https://freedombox.org/">Freedombox</a> instance, created
2121 /var/www/html/privatepictures/, wrote a small Perl script to extract
2122 title and description metadata from the photo files and generate the
2123 RSS file.  I ended up using Perl instead of python, as the
2124 libimage-exiftool-perl Debian package seemed to handle the EXIF/XMP
2125 tags I ended up using, while python3-exif did not.  The relevant EXIF
2126 tags only support ASCII, so I had to find better alternatives.  XMP
2127 seem to have the support I need.</p>
2128
2129 <p>I am a bit unsure which EXIF/XMP tags to use, as I would like to
2130 use tags that can be easily added/updated using normal free software
2131 photo managing software.  I ended up using the tags set using this
2132 exiftool command, as these tags can also be set using digiKam:</p>
2133
2134 <blockquote><pre>
2135 exiftool -headline='The RSS image title' \
2136   -description='The RSS image description.' \
2137   -subject+=for-family photo.jpeg
2138 </pre></blockquote>
2139
2140 <p>I initially tried the "-title" and "keyword" tags, but they were
2141 invisible in digiKam, so I changed to "-headline" and "-subject".  I
2142 use the keyword/subject 'for-family' to flag that the photo should be
2143 shared with my family.  Images with this keyword set are located and
2144 copied into my Freedombox for the RSS generating script to find.</p>
2145
2146 <p>Are there better ways to do this?  Get in touch if you have better
2147 suggestions.</p>
2148
2149 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2150 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2151 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2152
2153       </div>
2154       <div class="tags">
2155
2156
2157         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2158
2159
2160       </div>
2161     </div>
2162     <div class="padding"></div>
2163
2164     <div class="entry">
2165       <div class="title">
2166         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html">Simple streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using GStreamer and RTP</a>
2167       </div>
2168       <div class="date">
2169         12th July 2018
2170       </div>
2171       <div class="body">
2172         <p>Last night, I wrote
2173 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html">a
2174 recipe to stream a Linux desktop using VLC to a instance of Kodi</a>.
2175 During the day I received valuable feedback, and thanks to the
2176 suggestions I have been able to rewrite the recipe into a much simpler
2177 approach requiring no setup at all.  It is a single script that take
2178 care of it all.</p>
2179
2180 <p>This new script uses GStreamer instead of VLC to capture the
2181 desktop and stream it to Kodi.  This fixed the video quality issue I
2182 saw initially.  It further removes the need to add a m3u file on the
2183 Kodi machine, as it instead connects to
2184 <a href="https://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API/v8">the JSON-RPC API in
2185 Kodi</a> and simply ask Kodi to play from the stream created using
2186 GStreamer.  Streaming the desktop to Kodi now become trivial.  Copy
2187 the script below, run it with the DNS name or IP address of the kodi
2188 server to stream to as the only argument, and watch your screen show
2189 up on the Kodi screen.  Note, it depend on multicast on the local
2190 network, so if you need to stream outside the local network, the
2191 script must be modified.  Also note, I have no idea if audio work, as
2192 I only care about the picture part.</p>
2193
2194 <blockquote><pre>
2195 #!/bin/sh
2196 #
2197 # Stream the Linux desktop view to Kodi.  See
2198 # http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html
2199 # for backgorund information.
2200
2201 # Make sure the stream is stopped in Kodi and the gstreamer process is
2202 # killed if something go wrong (for example if curl is unable to find the
2203 # kodi server).  Do the same when interrupting this script.
2204 kodicmd() {
2205     host="$1"
2206     cmd="$2"
2207     params="$3"
2208     curl --silent --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
2209          --data-binary "{ \"id\": 1, \"jsonrpc\": \"2.0\", \"method\": \"$cmd\", \"params\": $params }" \
2210          "http://$host/jsonrpc"
2211 }
2212 cleanup() {
2213     if [ -n "$kodihost" ] ; then
2214         # Stop the playing when we end
2215         playerid=$(kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.GetActivePlayers "{}" |
2216                             jq .result[].playerid)
2217         kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.Stop "{ \"playerid\" : $playerid }" > /dev/null
2218     fi
2219     if [ "$gstpid" ] && kill -0 "$gstpid" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
2220         kill "$gstpid"
2221     fi
2222 }
2223 trap cleanup EXIT INT
2224
2225 if [ -n "$1" ]; then
2226     kodihost=$1
2227     shift
2228 else
2229     kodihost=kodi.local
2230 fi
2231
2232 mcast=239.255.0.1
2233 mcastport=1234
2234 mcastttl=1
2235
2236 pasrc=$(pactl list | grep -A2 'Source #' | grep 'Name: .*\.monitor$' | \
2237   cut -d" " -f2|head -1)
2238 gst-launch-1.0 ximagesrc use-damage=0 ! video/x-raw,framerate=30/1 ! \
2239   videoconvert ! queue2 ! \
2240   x264enc bitrate=8000 speed-preset=superfast tune=zerolatency qp-min=30 \
2241   key-int-max=15 bframes=2 ! video/x-h264,profile=high ! queue2 ! \
2242   mpegtsmux alignment=7 name=mux ! rndbuffersize max=1316 min=1316 ! \
2243   udpsink host=$mcast port=$mcastport ttl-mc=$mcastttl auto-multicast=1 sync=0 \
2244   pulsesrc device=$pasrc ! audioconvert ! queue2 ! avenc_aac ! queue2 ! mux. \
2245   > /dev/null 2>&1 &
2246 gstpid=$!
2247
2248 # Give stream a second to get going
2249 sleep 1
2250
2251 # Ask kodi to start streaming using its JSON-RPC API
2252 kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.Open \
2253         "{\"item\": { \"file\": \"udp://@$mcast:$mcastport\" } }" > /dev/null
2254
2255 # wait for gst to end
2256 wait "$gstpid"
2257 </pre></blockquote>
2258
2259 <p>I hope you find the approach useful.  I know I do.</p>
2260
2261 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2262 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2263 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2264
2265       </div>
2266       <div class="tags">
2267
2268
2269         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2270
2271
2272       </div>
2273     </div>
2274     <div class="padding"></div>
2275
2276     <div class="entry">
2277       <div class="title">
2278         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html">Streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using VLC and RTSP</a>
2279       </div>
2280       <div class="date">
2281         12th July 2018
2282       </div>
2283       <div class="body">
2284         <p>PS: See
2285 <ahref="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html">the
2286 followup post</a> for a even better approach.</p>
2287
2288 <p>A while back, I was asked by a friend how to stream the desktop to
2289 my projector connected to Kodi.  I sadly had to admit that I had no
2290 idea, as it was a task I never had tried.  Since then, I have been
2291 looking for a way to do so, preferable without much extra software to
2292 install on either side.  Today I found a way that seem to kind of
2293 work.  Not great, but it is a start.</p>
2294
2295 <p>I had a look at several approaches, for example
2296 <a href="https://github.com/mfoetsch/dlna_live_streaming">using uPnP
2297 DLNA as described in 2011</a>, but it required a uPnP server, fuse and
2298 local storage enough to store the stream locally.  This is not going
2299 to work well for me, lacking enough free space, and it would
2300 impossible for my friend to get working.</p>
2301
2302 <p>Next, it occurred to me that perhaps I could use VLC to create a
2303 video stream that Kodi could play.  Preferably using
2304 broadcast/multicast, to avoid having to change any setup on the Kodi
2305 side when starting such stream.  Unfortunately, the only recipe I
2306 could find using multicast used the rtp protocol, and this protocol
2307 seem to not be supported by Kodi.</p>
2308
2309 <p>On the other hand, the rtsp protocol is working!  Unfortunately I
2310 have to specify the IP address of the streaming machine in both the
2311 sending command and the file on the Kodi server.  But it is showing my
2312 desktop, and thus allow us to have a shared look on the big screen at
2313 the programs I work on.</p>
2314
2315 <p>I did not spend much time investigating codeces.  I combined the
2316 rtp and rtsp recipes from
2317 <a href="https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Streaming_HowTo/Command_Line_Examples/">the
2318 VLC Streaming HowTo/Command Line Examples</a>, and was able to get
2319 this working on the desktop/streaming end.</p>
2320
2321 <blockquote><pre>
2322 vlc screen:// --sout \
2323   '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{dst=projector.local,port=1234,sdp=rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp}'
2324 </pre></blockquote>
2325
2326 <p>I ssh-ed into my Kodi box and created a file like this with the
2327 same IP address:</p>
2328
2329 <blockquote><pre>
2330 echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp \
2331   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
2332 </pre></blockquote>
2333
2334 <p>Note the 192.168.11.4 IP address is my desktops IP address.  As far
2335 as I can tell the IP must be hardcoded for this to work.  In other
2336 words, if someone elses machine is going to do the steaming, you have
2337 to update screenstream.m3u on the Kodi machine and adjust the vlc
2338 recipe.  To get started, locate the file in Kodi and select the m3u
2339 file while the VLC stream is running.  The desktop then show up in my
2340 big screen. :)</p>
2341
2342 <p>When using the same technique to stream a video file with audio,
2343 the audio quality is really bad.  No idea if the problem is package
2344 loss or bad parameters for the transcode.  I do not know VLC nor Kodi
2345 enough to tell.</p>
2346
2347 <p><strong>Update 2018-07-12</strong>: Johannes Schauer send me a few
2348 succestions and reminded me about an important step.  The "screen:"
2349 input source is only available once the vlc-plugin-access-extra
2350 package is installed on Debian.  Without it, you will see this error
2351 message: "VLC is unable to open the MRL 'screen://'.  Check the log
2352 for details."  He further found that it is possible to drop some parts
2353 of the VLC command line to reduce the amount of hardcoded information.
2354 It is also useful to consider using cvlc to avoid having the VLC
2355 window in the desktop view.  In sum, this give us this command line on
2356 the source end
2357
2358 <blockquote><pre>
2359 cvlc screen:// --sout \
2360   '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8080/}'
2361 </pre></blockquote>
2362
2363 <p>and this on the Kodi end<p>
2364
2365 <blockquote><pre>
2366 echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/ \
2367   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
2368 </pre></blockquote>
2369
2370 <p>Still bad image quality, though.  But I did discover that streaming
2371 a DVD using dvdsimple:///dev/dvd as the source had excellent video and
2372 audio quality, so I guess the issue is in the input or transcoding
2373 parts, not the rtsp part.  I've tried to change the vb and ab
2374 parameters to use more bandwidth, but it did not make a
2375 difference.</p>
2376
2377 <p>I further received a suggestion from Einar Haraldseid to try using
2378 gstreamer instead of VLC, and this proved to work great!  He also
2379 provided me with the trick to get Kodi to use a multicast stream as
2380 its source.  By using this monstrous oneliner, I can stream my desktop
2381 with good video quality in reasonable framerate to the 239.255.0.1
2382 multicast address on port 1234:
2383
2384 <blockquote><pre>
2385 gst-launch-1.0 ximagesrc use-damage=0 ! video/x-raw,framerate=30/1 ! \
2386   videoconvert ! queue2 ! \
2387   x264enc bitrate=8000 speed-preset=superfast tune=zerolatency qp-min=30 \
2388   key-int-max=15 bframes=2 ! video/x-h264,profile=high ! queue2 ! \
2389   mpegtsmux alignment=7 name=mux ! rndbuffersize max=1316 min=1316 ! \
2390   udpsink host=239.255.0.1 port=1234 ttl-mc=1 auto-multicast=1 sync=0 \
2391   pulsesrc device=$(pactl list | grep -A2 'Source #' | \
2392     grep 'Name: .*\.monitor$' |  cut -d" " -f2|head -1) ! \
2393   audioconvert ! queue2 ! avenc_aac ! queue2 ! mux.
2394 </pre></blockquote>
2395
2396 <p>and this on the Kodi end<p>
2397
2398 <blockquote><pre>
2399 echo udp://@239.255.0.1:1234 \
2400   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
2401 </pre></blockquote>
2402
2403 <p>Note the trick to pick a valid pulseaudio source.  It might not
2404 pick the one you need.  This approach will of course lead to trouble
2405 if more than one source uses the same multicast port and address.
2406 Note the ttl-mc=1 setting, which limit the multicast packages to the
2407 local network.  If the value is increased, your screen will be
2408 broadcasted further, one network "hop" for each increase (read up on
2409 multicast to learn more. :)!</p>
2410
2411 <p>Having cracked how to get Kodi to receive multicast streams, I
2412 could use this VLC command to stream to the same multicast address.
2413 The image quality is way better than the rtsp approach, but gstreamer
2414 seem to be doing a better job.</p>
2415
2416 <blockquote><pre>
2417 cvlc screen:// --sout '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{mux=ts,dst=239.255.0.1,port=1234,sdp=sap}'
2418 </pre></blockquote>
2419
2420 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2421 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2422 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2423
2424       </div>
2425       <div class="tags">
2426
2427
2428         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2429
2430
2431       </div>
2432     </div>
2433     <div class="padding"></div>
2434
2435     <div class="entry">
2436       <div class="title">
2437         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_in_2018_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian in 2018?</a>
2438       </div>
2439       <div class="date">
2440          9th July 2018
2441       </div>
2442       <div class="body">
2443         <p>Five years ago,
2444 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">I
2445 measured what the most supported MIME type in Debian was</a>, by
2446 analysing the desktop files in all packages in the archive.  Since
2447 then, the DEP-11 AppStream system has been put into production, making
2448 the task a lot easier.  This made me want to repeat the measurement,
2449 to see how much things changed.  Here are the new numbers, for
2450 unstable only this time:
2451
2452 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
2453
2454 <pre>
2455   count MIME type
2456   ----- -----------------------
2457      56 image/jpeg
2458      55 image/png
2459      49 image/tiff
2460      48 image/gif
2461      39 image/bmp
2462      38 text/plain
2463      37 audio/mpeg
2464      34 application/ogg
2465      33 audio/x-flac
2466      32 audio/x-mp3
2467      30 audio/x-wav
2468      30 audio/x-vorbis+ogg
2469      29 image/x-portable-pixmap
2470      27 inode/directory
2471      27 image/x-portable-bitmap
2472      27 audio/x-mpeg
2473      26 application/x-ogg
2474      25 audio/x-mpegurl
2475      25 audio/ogg
2476      24 text/html
2477 </pre>
2478
2479 <p>The list was created like this using a sid chroot: "cat
2480 /var/lib/apt/lists/*sid*_dep11_Components-amd64.yml.gz| zcat | awk '/^
2481 - \S+\/\S+$/ {print $2 }' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20"</p>
2482
2483 <p>It is interesting to see how image formats have passed text/plain
2484 as the most announced supported MIME type.  These days, thanks to the
2485 AppStream system, if you run into a file format you do not know, and
2486 want to figure out which packages support the format, you can find the
2487 MIME type of the file using "file --mime &lt;filename&gt;", and then
2488 look up all packages announcing support for this format in their
2489 AppStream metadata (XML or .desktop file) using "appstreamcli
2490 what-provides mimetype &lt;mime-type&gt;.  For example if you, like
2491 me, want to know which packages support inode/directory, you can get a
2492 list like this:</p>
2493
2494 <p><blockquote><pre>
2495 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype inode/directory | grep Package: | sort
2496 Package: anjuta
2497 Package: audacious
2498 Package: baobab
2499 Package: cervisia
2500 Package: chirp
2501 Package: dolphin
2502 Package: doublecmd-common
2503 Package: easytag
2504 Package: enlightenment
2505 Package: ephoto
2506 Package: filelight
2507 Package: gwenview
2508 Package: k4dirstat
2509 Package: kaffeine
2510 Package: kdesvn
2511 Package: kid3
2512 Package: kid3-qt
2513 Package: nautilus
2514 Package: nemo
2515 Package: pcmanfm
2516 Package: pcmanfm-qt
2517 Package: qweborf
2518 Package: ranger
2519 Package: sirikali
2520 Package: spacefm
2521 Package: spacefm
2522 Package: vifm
2523 %
2524 </pre></blockquote></p>
2525
2526 <p>Using the same method, I can quickly discover that the Sketchup file
2527 format is not yet supported by any package in Debian:</p>
2528
2529 <p><blockquote><pre>
2530 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype  application/vnd.sketchup.skp
2531 Could not find component providing 'mimetype::application/vnd.sketchup.skp'.
2532 %
2533 </pre></blockquote></p>
2534
2535 <p>Yesterday I used it to figure out which packages support the STL 3D
2536 format:</p>
2537
2538 <p><blockquote><pre>
2539 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype  application/sla|grep Package
2540 Package: cura
2541 Package: meshlab
2542 Package: printrun
2543 %
2544 </pre></blockquote></p>
2545
2546 <p>PS: A new version of Cura was uploaded to Debian yesterday.</p>
2547
2548 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2549 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2550 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2551
2552       </div>
2553       <div class="tags">
2554
2555
2556         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2557
2558
2559       </div>
2560     </div>
2561     <div class="padding"></div>
2562
2563     <div class="entry">
2564       <div class="title">
2565         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_APT_upgrade_without_enough_free_space_on_the_disk___.html">Debian APT upgrade without enough free space on the disk...</a>
2566       </div>
2567       <div class="date">
2568          8th July 2018
2569       </div>
2570       <div class="body">
2571         <p>Quite regularly, I let my Debian Sid/Unstable chroot stay untouch
2572 for a while, and when I need to update it there is not enough free
2573 space on the disk for apt to do a normal 'apt upgrade'.  I normally
2574 would resolve the issue by doing 'apt install &lt;somepackages&gt;' to
2575 upgrade only some of the packages in one batch, until the amount of
2576 packages to download fall below the amount of free space available.
2577 Today, I had about 500 packages to upgrade, and after a while I got
2578 tired of trying to install chunks of packages manually.  I concluded
2579 that I did not have the spare hours required to complete the task, and
2580 decided to see if I could automate it.  I came up with this small
2581 script which I call 'apt-in-chunks':</p>
2582
2583 <p><blockquote><pre>
2584 #!/bin/sh
2585 #
2586 # Upgrade packages when the disk is too full to upgrade every
2587 # upgradable package in one lump.  Fetching packages to upgrade using
2588 # apt, and then installing using dpkg, to avoid changing the package
2589 # flag for manual/automatic.
2590
2591 set -e
2592
2593 ignore() {
2594     if [ "$1" ]; then
2595         grep -v "$1"
2596     else
2597         cat
2598     fi
2599 }
2600
2601 for p in $(apt list --upgradable | ignore "$@" |cut -d/ -f1 | grep -v '^Listing...'); do
2602     echo "Upgrading $p"
2603     apt clean
2604     apt install --download-only -y $p
2605     for f in /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb; do
2606         if [ -e "$f" ]; then
2607             dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb
2608             break
2609         fi
2610     done
2611 done
2612 </pre></blockquote></p>
2613
2614 <p>The script will extract the list of packages to upgrade, try to
2615 download the packages needed to upgrade one package, install the
2616 downloaded packages using dpkg.  The idea is to upgrade packages
2617 without changing the APT mark for the package (ie the one recording of
2618 the package was manually requested or pulled in as a dependency).  To
2619 use it, simply run it as root from the command line.  If it fail, try
2620 'apt install -f' to clean up the mess and run the script again.  This
2621 might happen if the new packages conflict with one of the old
2622 packages.  dpkg is unable to remove, while apt can do this.</p>
2623
2624 <p>It take one option, a package to ignore in the list of packages to
2625 upgrade.  The option to ignore a package is there to be able to skip
2626 the packages that are simply too large to unpack.  Today this was
2627 'ghc', but I have run into other large packages causing similar
2628 problems earlier (like TeX).</p>
2629
2630 <p>Update 2018-07-08: Thanks to Paul Wise, I am aware of two
2631 alternative ways to handle this.  The "unattended-upgrades
2632 --minimal-upgrade-steps" option will try to calculate upgrade sets for
2633 each package to upgrade, and then upgrade them in order, smallest set
2634 first.  It might be a better option than my above mentioned script.
2635 Also, "aptutude upgrade" can upgrade single packages, thus avoiding
2636 the need for using "dpkg -i" in the script above.</p>
2637
2638 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2639 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2640 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2641
2642       </div>
2643       <div class="tags">
2644
2645
2646         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2647
2648
2649       </div>
2650     </div>
2651     <div class="padding"></div>
2652
2653     <div class="entry">
2654       <div class="title">
2655         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Version_3_1_of_Cura__the_3D_print_slicer__is_now_in_Debian.html">Version 3.1 of Cura, the 3D print slicer, is now in Debian</a>
2656       </div>
2657       <div class="date">
2658         13th February 2018
2659       </div>
2660       <div class="body">
2661         <p>A new version of the
2662 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura">3D printer slicer
2663 software Cura</a>, version 3.1.0, is now available in Debian Testing
2664 (aka Buster) and Debian Unstable (aka Sid).  I hope you find it
2665 useful.  It was uploaded the last few days, and the last update will
2666 enter testing tomorrow.  See the
2667 <a href="https://ultimaker.com/en/products/cura-software/release-notes">release
2668 notes</a> for the list of bug fixes and new features.  Version 3.2
2669 was announced 6 days ago.  We will try to get it into Debian as
2670 well.</p>
2671
2672 <p>More information related to 3D printing is available on the
2673 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/3DPrinting">3D printing</a> and
2674 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/3D-printer">3D printer</a> wiki pages
2675 in Debian.</p>
2676
2677 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2678 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2679 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2680
2681       </div>
2682       <div class="tags">
2683
2684
2685         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2686
2687
2688       </div>
2689     </div>
2690     <div class="padding"></div>
2691
2692     <div class="entry">
2693       <div class="title">
2694         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cura__the_nice_3D_print_slicer__is_now_in_Debian_Unstable.html">Cura, the nice 3D print slicer, is now in Debian Unstable</a>
2695       </div>
2696       <div class="date">
2697         17th December 2017
2698       </div>
2699       <div class="body">
2700         <p>After several months of working and waiting, I am happy to report
2701 that the nice and user friendly 3D printer slicer software Cura just
2702 entered Debian Unstable.  It consist of five packages,
2703 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura">cura</a>,
2704 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura-engine">cura-engine</a>,
2705 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libarcus">libarcus</a>,
2706 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/fdm-materials">fdm-materials</a>,
2707 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libsavitar">libsavitar</a> and
2708 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/uranium">uranium</a>.  The last
2709 two, uranium and cura, entered Unstable yesterday.  This should make
2710 it easier for Debian users to print on at least the Ultimaker class of
2711 3D printers.  My nearest 3D printer is an Ultimaker 2+, so it will
2712 make life easier for at least me. :)</p>
2713
2714 <p>The work to make this happen was done by Gregor Riepl, and I was
2715 happy to assist him in sponsoring the packages.  With the introduction
2716 of Cura, Debian is up to three 3D printer slicers at your service,
2717 Cura, Slic3r and Slic3r Prusa.  If you own or have access to a 3D
2718 printer, give it a go. :)</p>
2719
2720 <p>The 3D printer software is maintained by the 3D printer Debian
2721 team, flocking together on the
2722 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/3dprinter-general">3dprinter-general</a>
2723 mailing list and the
2724 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-3dprinting">#debian-3dprinting</a>
2725 IRC channel.</p>
2726
2727 <p>The next step for Cura in Debian is to update the cura package to
2728 version 3.0.3 and then update the entire set of packages to version
2729 3.1.0 which showed up the last few days.</p>
2730
2731       </div>
2732       <div class="tags">
2733
2734
2735         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2736
2737
2738       </div>
2739     </div>
2740     <div class="padding"></div>
2741
2742     <div class="entry">
2743       <div class="title">
2744         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Generating_3D_prints_in_Debian_using_Cura_and_Slic3r__prusa_.html">Generating 3D prints in Debian using Cura and Slic3r(-prusa)</a>
2745       </div>
2746       <div class="date">
2747          9th October 2017
2748       </div>
2749       <div class="body">
2750         <p>At my nearby maker space,
2751 <a href="http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Sonen</a>, I heard the story that it
2752 was easier to generate gcode files for theyr 3D printers (Ultimake 2+)
2753 on Windows and MacOS X than Linux, because the software involved had
2754 to be manually compiled and set up on Linux while premade packages
2755 worked out of the box on Windows and MacOS X.  I found this annoying,
2756 as the software involved,
2757 <a href="https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura">Cura</a>, is free software
2758 and should be trivial to get up and running on Linux if someone took
2759 the time to package it for the relevant distributions.  I even found
2760 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/706656">a request for adding into
2761 Debian</a> from 2013, which had seem some activity over the years but
2762 never resulted in the software showing up in Debian.  So a few days
2763 ago I offered my help to try to improve the situation.</p>
2764
2765 <p>Now I am very happy to see that all the packages required by a
2766 working Cura in Debian are uploaded into Debian and waiting in the NEW
2767 queue for the ftpmasters to have a look.  You can track the progress
2768 on
2769 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=3dprinter-general%40lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2770 status page for the 3D printer team</a>.</p>
2771
2772 <p>The uploaded packages are a bit behind upstream, and was uploaded
2773 now to get slots in <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW
2774 queue</a> while we work up updating the packages to the latest
2775 upstream version.</p>
2776
2777 <p>On a related note, two competitors for Cura, which I found harder
2778 to use and was unable to configure correctly for Ultimaker 2+ in the
2779 short time I spent on it, are already in Debian.  If you are looking
2780 for 3D printer "slicers" and want something already available in
2781 Debian, check out
2782 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r">slic3r</a> and
2783 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r-prusa">slic3r-prusa</a>.
2784 The latter is a fork of the former.</p>
2785
2786 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2787 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2788 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2789
2790       </div>
2791       <div class="tags">
2792
2793
2794         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2795
2796
2797       </div>
2798     </div>
2799     <div class="padding"></div>
2800
2801     <div class="entry">
2802       <div class="title">
2803         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Visualizing_GSM_radio_chatter_using_gr_gsm_and_Hopglass.html">Visualizing GSM radio chatter using gr-gsm and Hopglass</a>
2804       </div>
2805       <div class="date">
2806         29th September 2017
2807       </div>
2808       <div class="body">
2809         <p>Every mobile phone announce its existence over radio to the nearby
2810 mobile cell towers.  And this radio chatter is available for anyone
2811 with a radio receiver capable of receiving them.  Details about the
2812 mobile phones with very good accuracy is of course collected by the
2813 phone companies, but this is not the topic of this blog post.  The
2814 mobile phone radio chatter make it possible to figure out when a cell
2815 phone is nearby, as it include the SIM card ID (IMSI).  By paying
2816 attention over time, one can see when a phone arrive and when it leave
2817 an area.  I believe it would be nice to make this information more
2818 available to the general public, to make more people aware of how
2819 their phones are announcing their whereabouts to anyone that care to
2820 listen.</p>
2821
2822 <p>I am very happy to report that we managed to get something
2823 visualizing this information up and running for
2824 <a href="http://norwaymakers.org/osf17">Oslo Skaperfestival 2017</a>
2825 (Oslo Makers Festival) taking place today and tomorrow at Deichmanske
2826 library.  The solution is based on the
2827 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">simple
2828 recipe for listening to GSM chatter</a> I posted a few days ago, and
2829 will show up at the stand of <a href="http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Åpen
2830 Sone from the Computer Science department of the University of
2831 Oslo</a>.  The presentation will show the nearby mobile phones (aka
2832 IMSIs) as dots in a web browser graph, with lines to the dot
2833 representing mobile base station it is talking to. It was working in
2834 the lab yesterday, and was moved into place this morning.</p>
2835
2836 <p>We set up a fairly powerful desktop machine using Debian
2837 Buster/Testing with several (five, I believe) RTL2838 DVB-T receivers
2838 connected and visualize the visible cell phone towers using an
2839 <a href="https://github.com/marlow925/hopglass">English version of
2840 Hopglass</a>.  A fairly powerfull machine is needed as the
2841 grgsm_livemon_headless processes from
2842 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a> converting
2843 the radio signal to data packages is quite CPU intensive.</p>
2844
2845 <p>The frequencies to listen to, are identified using a slightly
2846 patched scan-and-livemon (to set the --args values for each receiver),
2847 and the Hopglass data is generated using the
2848 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/IMSI-catcher/tree/meshviewer-output">patches
2849 in my meshviewer-output branch</a>.  For some reason we could not get
2850 more than four SDRs working.  There is also a geographical map trying
2851 to show the location of the base stations, but I believe their
2852 coordinates are hardcoded to some random location in Germany, I
2853 believe.  The code should be replaced with code to look up location in
2854 a text file, a sqlite database or one of the online databases
2855 mentioned in
2856 <a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher/issues/14">the github
2857 issue for the topic</a>.
2858
2859 <p>If this sound interesting, visit the stand at the festival!</p>
2860
2861       </div>
2862       <div class="tags">
2863
2864
2865         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2866
2867
2868       </div>
2869     </div>
2870     <div class="padding"></div>
2871
2872     <div class="entry">
2873       <div class="title">
2874         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">Easier recipe to observe the cell phones around you</a>
2875       </div>
2876       <div class="date">
2877         24th September 2017
2878       </div>
2879       <div class="body">
2880         <p>A little more than a month ago I wrote
2881 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">how
2882 to observe the SIM card ID (aka IMSI number) of mobile phones talking
2883 to nearby mobile phone base stations using Debian GNU/Linux and a
2884 cheap USB software defined radio</a>, and thus being able to pinpoint
2885 the location of people and equipment (like cars and trains) with an
2886 accuracy of a few kilometer.  Since then we have worked to make the
2887 procedure even simpler, and it is now possible to do this without any
2888 manual frequency tuning and without building your own packages.</p>
2889
2890 <p>The <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a>
2891 package is now included in Debian testing and unstable, and the
2892 IMSI-catcher code no longer require root access to fetch and decode
2893 the GSM data collected using gr-gsm.</p>
2894
2895 <p>Here is an updated recipe, using packages built by Debian and a git
2896 clone of two python scripts:</p>
2897
2898 <ol>
2899
2900 <li>Start with a Debian machine running the Buster version (aka
2901   testing).</li>
2902
2903 <li>Run '<tt>apt install gr-gsm python-numpy python-scipy
2904   python-scapy</tt>' as root to install required packages.</li>
2905
2906 <li>Fetch the code decoding GSM packages using '<tt>git clone
2907   github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher.git</tt>'.</li>
2908
2909 <li>Insert USB software defined radio supported by GNU Radio.</li>
2910
2911 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
2912   scan-and-livemon</tt>' to locate the frequency of nearby base
2913   stations and start listening for GSM packages on one of them.</li>
2914
2915 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
2916   simple_IMSI-catcher.py</tt>' to display the collected information.</li>
2917
2918 </ol>
2919
2920 <p>Note, due to a bug somewhere the scan-and-livemon program (actually
2921 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/issues/336">its underlying
2922 program grgsm_scanner</a>) do not work with the HackRF radio.  It does
2923 work with RTL 8232 and other similar USB radio receivers you can get
2924 very cheaply
2925 (<a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=rtl+2832">for example
2926 from ebay</a>), so for now the solution is to scan using the RTL radio
2927 and only use HackRF for fetching GSM data.</p>
2928
2929 <p>As far as I can tell, a cell phone only show up on one of the
2930 frequencies at the time, so if you are going to track and count every
2931 cell phone around you, you need to listen to all the frequencies used.
2932 To listen to several frequencies, use the --numrecv argument to
2933 scan-and-livemon to use several receivers.  Further, I am not sure if
2934 phones using 3G or 4G will show as talking GSM to base stations, so
2935 this approach might not see all phones around you.  I typically see
2936 0-400 IMSI numbers an hour when looking around where I live.</p>
2937
2938 <p>I've tried to run the scanner on a
2939 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi 2 and 3
2940 running Debian Buster</a>, but the grgsm_livemon_headless process seem
2941 to be too CPU intensive to keep up.  When GNU Radio print 'O' to
2942 stdout, I am told there it is caused by a buffer overflow between the
2943 radio and GNU Radio, caused by the program being unable to read the
2944 GSM data fast enough.  If you see a stream of 'O's from the terminal
2945 where you started scan-and-livemon, you need a give the process more
2946 CPU power.  Perhaps someone are able to optimize the code to a point
2947 where it become possible to set up RPi3 based GSM sniffers?  I tried
2948 using Raspbian instead of Debian, but there seem to be something wrong
2949 with GNU Radio on raspbian, causing glibc to abort().</p>
2950
2951       </div>
2952       <div class="tags">
2953
2954
2955         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
2956
2957
2958       </div>
2959     </div>
2960     <div class="padding"></div>
2961
2962     <div class="entry">
2963       <div class="title">
2964         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">Simpler recipe on how to make a simple $7 IMSI Catcher using Debian</a>
2965       </div>
2966       <div class="date">
2967          9th August 2017
2968       </div>
2969       <div class="body">
2970         <p>On friday, I came across an interesting article in the Norwegian
2971 web based ICT news magazine digi.no on
2972 <a href="https://www.digi.no/artikler/sikkerhetsforsker-lagde-enkel-imsi-catcher-for-60-kroner-na-kan-mobiler-kartlegges-av-alle/398588">how
2973 to collect the IMSI numbers of nearby cell phones</a> using the cheap
2974 DVB-T software defined radios.  The article refered to instructions
2975 and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjwgNd_as30">a recipe by
2976 Keld Norman on Youtube on how to make a simple $7 IMSI Catcher</a>, and I decided to test them out.</p>
2977
2978 <p>The instructions said to use Ubuntu, install pip using apt (to
2979 bypass apt), use pip to install pybombs (to bypass both apt and pip),
2980 and the ask pybombs to fetch and build everything you need from
2981 scratch.  I wanted to see if I could do the same on the most recent
2982 Debian packages, but this did not work because pybombs tried to build
2983 stuff that no longer build with the most recent openssl library or
2984 some other version skew problem.  While trying to get this recipe
2985 working, I learned that the apt->pip->pybombs route was a long detour,
2986 and the only piece of software dependency missing in Debian was the
2987 gr-gsm package.  I also found out that the lead upstream developer of
2988 gr-gsm (the name stand for GNU Radio GSM) project already had a set of
2989 Debian packages provided in an Ubuntu PPA repository.  All I needed to
2990 do was to dget the Debian source package and built it.</p>
2991
2992 <p>The IMSI collector is a python script listening for packages on the
2993 loopback network device and printing to the terminal some specific GSM
2994 packages with IMSI numbers in them.  The code is fairly short and easy
2995 to understand.  The reason this work is because gr-gsm include a tool
2996 to read GSM data from a software defined radio like a DVB-T USB stick
2997 and other software defined radios, decode them and inject them into a
2998 network device on your Linux machine (using the loopback device by
2999 default).  This proved to work just fine, and I've been testing the
3000 collector for a few days now.</p>
3001
3002 <p>The updated and simpler recipe is thus to</p>
3003
3004 <ol>
3005
3006 <li>start with a Debian machine running Stretch or newer,</li>
3007
3008 <li>build and install the gr-gsm package available from
3009 <a href="http://ppa.launchpad.net/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gr-gsm/">http://ppa.launchpad.net/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/ubuntu/pool/main/g/gr-gsm/</a>,</li>
3010
3011 <li>clone the git repostory from <a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher">https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher</a>,</li>
3012
3013 <li>run grgsm_livemon and adjust the frequency until the terminal
3014 where it was started is filled with a stream of text (meaning you
3015 found a GSM station).</li>
3016
3017 <li>go into the IMSI-catcher directory and run 'sudo python simple_IMSI-catcher.py' to extract the IMSI numbers.</li>
3018
3019 </ol>
3020
3021 <p>To make it even easier in the future to get this sniffer up and
3022 running, I decided to package
3023 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/">the gr-gsm project</a>
3024 for Debian (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/871055">WNPP
3025 #871055</a>), and the package was uploaded into the NEW queue today.
3026 Luckily the gnuradio maintainer has promised to help me, as I do not
3027 know much about gnuradio stuff yet.</p>
3028
3029 <p>I doubt this "IMSI cacher" is anywhere near as powerfull as
3030 commercial tools like
3031 <a href="https://www.thespyphone.com/portable-imsi-imei-catcher/">The
3032 Spy Phone Portable IMSI / IMEI Catcher</a> or the
3033 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker">Harris
3034 Stingray</a>, but I hope the existance of cheap alternatives can make
3035 more people realise how their whereabouts when carrying a cell phone
3036 is easily tracked.  Seeing the data flow on the screen, realizing that
3037 I live close to a police station and knowing that the police is also
3038 wearing cell phones, I wonder how hard it would be for criminals to
3039 track the position of the police officers to discover when there are
3040 police near by, or for foreign military forces to track the location
3041 of the Norwegian military forces, or for anyone to track the location
3042 of government officials...</p>
3043
3044 <p>It is worth noting that the data reported by the IMSI-catcher
3045 script mentioned above is only a fraction of the data broadcasted on
3046 the GSM network.  It will only collect one frequency at the time,
3047 while a typical phone will be using several frequencies, and not all
3048 phones will be using the frequencies tracked by the grgsm_livemod
3049 program.  Also, there is a lot of radio chatter being ignored by the
3050 simple_IMSI-catcher script, which would be collected by extending the
3051 parser code.  I wonder if gr-gsm can be set up to listen to more than
3052 one frequency?</p>
3053
3054       </div>
3055       <div class="tags">
3056
3057
3058         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
3059
3060
3061       </div>
3062     </div>
3063     <div class="padding"></div>
3064
3065     <div class="entry">
3066       <div class="title">
3067         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_is_now_available.html">Norwegian Bokmål edition of Debian Administrator's Handbook is now available</a>
3068       </div>
3069       <div class="date">
3070         25th July 2017
3071       </div>
3072       <div class="body">
3073         <p align="center"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-07-25-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.png"/></p>
3074
3075 <p>I finally received a copy of the Norwegian Bokmål edition of
3076 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
3077 Handbook</a>".  This test copy arrived in the mail a few days ago, and
3078 I am very happy to hold the result in my hand.   We spent around one and a half year translating it. This paperbook edition
3079 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian">is available
3080 from lulu.com</a>.  If you buy it quickly, you save 25% on the list
3081 price.  The book is also available for download in electronic form as
3082 PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket, as can be
3083 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">read online
3084 as a web page</a>.</p>
3085
3086 <p>This is the second book I publish (the first was the book
3087 "<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a>" by Lawrence Lessig
3088 in
3089 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22440520.html">English</a>,
3090 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html">French</a>
3091 and
3092 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">Norwegian
3093 Bokmål</a>), and I am very excited to finally wrap up this
3094 project.  I hope
3095 "<a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/rapha%C3%ABl-hertzog-and-roland-mas/h%C3%A5ndbok-for-debian-administratoren/paperback/product-23262290.html">Håndbok
3096 for Debian-administratoren</a>" will be well received.</p>
3097
3098       </div>
3099       <div class="tags">
3100
3101
3102         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3103
3104
3105       </div>
3106     </div>
3107     <div class="padding"></div>
3108
3109     <div class="entry">
3110       <div class="title">
3111         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/N_r_nynorskoversettelsen_svikter_til_eksamen___.html">Når nynorskoversettelsen svikter til eksamen...</a>
3112       </div>
3113       <div class="date">
3114          3rd June 2017
3115       </div>
3116       <div class="body">
3117         <p><a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/norge/Krever-at-elever-ma-fa-annullert-eksamen-etter-rot-med-oppgavetekster-622459b.html">Aftenposten
3118 melder i dag</a> om feil i eksamensoppgavene for eksamen i politikk og
3119 menneskerettigheter, der teksten i bokmåls og nynorskutgaven ikke var
3120 like.  Oppgaveteksten er gjengitt i artikkelen, og jeg ble nysgjerring
3121 på om den fri oversetterløsningen
3122 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium</a> ville gjort en bedre
3123 jobb enn Utdanningsdirektoratet.  Det kan se slik ut.</p>
3124
3125 <p>Her er bokmålsoppgaven fra eksamenen:</p>
3126
3127 <blockquote>
3128 <p>Drøft utfordringene knyttet til nasjonalstatenes og andre aktørers
3129 rolle og muligheter til å håndtere internasjonale utfordringer, som
3130 for eksempel flykningekrisen.</p>
3131
3132 <p>Vedlegge er eksempler på tekster som kan gi relevante perspektiver
3133 på temaet:</p>
3134 <ol>
3135 <li>Flykningeregnskapet 2016, UNHCR og IDMC
3136 <li>«Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015
3137 </ol>
3138
3139 </blockquote>
3140
3141 <p>Dette oversetter Apertium slik:</p>
3142
3143 <blockquote>
3144 <p>Drøft utfordringane knytte til nasjonalstatane sine og rolla til
3145 andre aktørar og høve til å handtera internasjonale utfordringar, som
3146 til dømes *flykningekrisen.</p>
3147
3148 <p>Vedleggja er døme på tekster som kan gje relevante perspektiv på
3149 temaet:</p>
3150
3151 <ol>
3152 <li>*Flykningeregnskapet 2016, *UNHCR og *IDMC</li>
3153 <li>«*Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015</li>
3154 </ol>
3155
3156 </blockquote>
3157
3158 <p>Ord som ikke ble forstått er markert med stjerne (*), og trenger
3159 ekstra språksjekk.  Men ingen ord er forsvunnet, slik det var i
3160 oppgaven elevene fikk presentert på eksamen.  Jeg mistenker dog at
3161 "andre aktørers rolle og muligheter til ..." burde vært oversatt til
3162 "rolla til andre aktørar og deira høve til ..." eller noe slikt, men
3163 det er kanskje flisespikking.  Det understreker vel bare at det alltid
3164 trengs korrekturlesning etter automatisk oversettelse.</p>
3165
3166       </div>
3167       <div class="tags">
3168
3169
3170         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
3171
3172
3173       </div>
3174     </div>
3175     <div class="padding"></div>
3176
3177     <div class="entry">
3178       <div class="title">
3179         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Detecting_NFS_hangs_on_Linux_without_hanging_yourself___.html">Detecting NFS hangs on Linux without hanging yourself...</a>
3180       </div>
3181       <div class="date">
3182          9th March 2017
3183       </div>
3184       <div class="body">
3185         <p>Over the years, administrating thousand of NFS mounting linux
3186 computers at the time, I often needed a way to detect if the machine
3187 was experiencing NFS hang.  If you try to use <tt>df</tt> or look at a
3188 file or directory affected by the hang, the process (and possibly the
3189 shell) will hang too.  So you want to be able to detect this without
3190 risking the detection process getting stuck too.  It has not been
3191 obvious how to do this.  When the hang has lasted a while, it is
3192 possible to find messages like these in dmesg:</p>
3193
3194 <p><blockquote>
3195 nfs: server nfsserver not responding, still trying
3196 <br>nfs: server nfsserver OK
3197 </blockquote></p>
3198
3199 <p>It is hard to know if the hang is still going on, and it is hard to
3200 be sure looking in dmesg is going to work.  If there are lots of other
3201 messages in dmesg the lines might have rotated out of site before they
3202 are noticed.</p>
3203
3204 <p>While reading through the nfs client implementation in linux kernel
3205 code, I came across some statistics that seem to give a way to detect
3206 it.  The om_timeouts sunrpc value in the kernel will increase every
3207 time the above log entry is inserted into dmesg.  And after digging a
3208 bit further, I discovered that this value show up in
3209 /proc/self/mountstats on Linux.</p>
3210
3211 <p>The mountstats content seem to be shared between files using the
3212 same file system context, so it is enough to check one of the
3213 mountstats files to get the state of the mount point for the machine.
3214 I assume this will not show lazy umounted NFS points, nor NFS mount
3215 points in a different process context (ie with a different filesystem
3216 view), but that does not worry me.</p>
3217
3218 <p>The content for a NFS mount point look similar to this:</p>
3219
3220 <p><blockquote><pre>
3221 [...]
3222 device /dev/mapper/Debian-var mounted on /var with fstype ext3
3223 device nfsserver:/mnt/nfsserver/home0 mounted on /mnt/nfsserver/home0 with fstype nfs statvers=1.1
3224         opts:   rw,vers=3,rsize=65536,wsize=65536,namlen=255,acregmin=3,acregmax=60,acdirmin=30,acdirmax=60,soft,nolock,proto=tcp,timeo=600,retrans=2,sec=sys,mountaddr=129.240.3.145,mountvers=3,mountport=4048,mountproto=udp,local_lock=all
3225         age:    7863311
3226         caps:   caps=0x3fe7,wtmult=4096,dtsize=8192,bsize=0,namlen=255
3227         sec:    flavor=1,pseudoflavor=1
3228         events: 61063112 732346265 1028140 35486205 16220064 8162542 761447191 71714012 37189 3891185 45561809 110486139 4850138 420353 15449177 296502 52736725 13523379 0 52182 9016896 1231 0 0 0 0 0
3229         bytes:  166253035039 219519120027 0 0 40783504807 185466229638 11677877 45561809
3230         RPC iostats version: 1.0  p/v: 100003/3 (nfs)
3231         xprt:   tcp 925 1 6810 0 0 111505412 111480497 109 2672418560317 0 248 53869103 22481820
3232         per-op statistics
3233                 NULL: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3234              GETATTR: 61063106 61063108 0 9621383060 6839064400 453650 77291321 78926132
3235              SETATTR: 463469 463470 0 92005440 66739536 63787 603235 687943
3236               LOOKUP: 17021657 17021657 0 3354097764 4013442928 57216 35125459 35566511
3237               ACCESS: 14281703 14290009 5 2318400592 1713803640 1709282 4865144 7130140
3238             READLINK: 125 125 0 20472 18620 0 1112 1118
3239                 READ: 4214236 4214237 0 715608524 41328653212 89884 22622768 22806693
3240                WRITE: 8479010 8494376 22 187695798568 1356087148 178264904 51506907 231671771
3241               CREATE: 171708 171708 0 38084748 46702272 873 1041833 1050398
3242                MKDIR: 3680 3680 0 773980 993920 26 23990 24245
3243              SYMLINK: 903 903 0 233428 245488 6 5865 5917
3244                MKNOD: 80 80 0 20148 21760 0 299 304
3245               REMOVE: 429921 429921 0 79796004 61908192 3313 2710416 2741636
3246                RMDIR: 3367 3367 0 645112 484848 22 5782 6002
3247               RENAME: 466201 466201 0 130026184 121212260 7075 5935207 5961288
3248                 LINK: 289155 289155 0 72775556 67083960 2199 2565060 2585579
3249              READDIR: 2933237 2933237 0 516506204 13973833412 10385 3190199 3297917
3250          READDIRPLUS: 1652839 1652839 0 298640972 6895997744 84735 14307895 14448937
3251               FSSTAT: 6144 6144 0 1010516 1032192 51 9654 10022
3252               FSINFO: 2 2 0 232 328 0 1 1
3253             PATHCONF: 1 1 0 116 140 0 0 0
3254               COMMIT: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3255
3256 device binfmt_misc mounted on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc with fstype binfmt_misc
3257 [...]
3258 </pre></blockquote></p>
3259
3260 <p>The key number to look at is the third number in the per-op list.
3261 It is the number of NFS timeouts experiences per file system
3262 operation.  Here 22 write timeouts and 5 access timeouts.  If these
3263 numbers are increasing, I believe the machine is experiencing NFS
3264 hang.  Unfortunately the timeout value do not start to increase right
3265 away.  The NFS operations need to time out first, and this can take a
3266 while.  The exact timeout value depend on the setup.  For example the
3267 defaults for TCP and UDP mount points are quite different, and the
3268 timeout value is affected by the soft, hard, timeo and retrans NFS
3269 mount options.</p>
3270
3271 <p>The only way I have been able to get working on Debian and RedHat
3272 Enterprise Linux for getting the timeout count is to peek in /proc/.
3273 But according to
3274 <ahref="http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4555/netmonitor-12/index.html">Solaris
3275 10 System Administration Guide: Network Services</a>, the 'nfsstat -c'
3276 command can be used to get these timeout values.  But this do not work
3277 on Linux, as far as I can tell.  I
3278 <ahref="http://bugs.debian.org/857043">asked Debian about this</a>,
3279 but have not seen any replies yet.</p>
3280
3281 <p>Is there a better way to figure out if a Linux NFS client is
3282 experiencing NFS hangs?  Is there a way to detect which processes are
3283 affected?  Is there a way to get the NFS mount going quickly once the
3284 network problem causing the NFS hang has been cleared?  I would very
3285 much welcome some clues, as we regularly run into NFS hangs.</p>
3286
3287       </div>
3288       <div class="tags">
3289
3290
3291         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
3292
3293
3294       </div>
3295     </div>
3296     <div class="padding"></div>
3297
3298     <div class="entry">
3299       <div class="title">
3300         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_complete__proofreading_in_progress.html">Norwegian Bokmål translation of The Debian Administrator's Handbook complete, proofreading in progress</a>
3301       </div>
3302       <div class="date">
3303          3rd March 2017
3304       </div>
3305       <div class="body">
3306         <p>For almost a year now, we have been working on making a Norwegian
3307 Bokmål edition of <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian
3308 Administrator's Handbook</a>.  Now, thanks to the tireless effort of
3309 Ole-Erik, Ingrid and Andreas, the initial translation is complete, and
3310 we are working on the proof reading to ensure consistent language and
3311 use of correct computer science terms.  The plan is to make the book
3312 available on paper, as well as in electronic form.  For that to
3313 happen, the proof reading must be completed and all the figures need
3314 to be translated.  If you want to help out, get in touch.</p>
3315
3316 <p><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-handbook/debian-handbook-nb-NO.pdf">A
3317
3318 fresh PDF edition</a> in A4 format (the final book will have smaller
3319 pages) of the book created every morning is available for
3320 proofreading.  If you find any errors, please
3321 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">visit
3322 Weblate and correct the error</a>.  The
3323 <a href="http://l.github.io/debian-handbook/stat/nb-NO/index.html">state
3324 of the translation including figures</a> is a useful source for those
3325 provide Norwegian bokmål screen shots and figures.</p>
3326
3327       </div>
3328       <div class="tags">
3329
3330
3331         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3332
3333
3334       </div>
3335     </div>
3336     <div class="padding"></div>
3337
3338     <div class="entry">
3339       <div class="title">
3340         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html">Unlimited randomness with the ChaosKey?</a>
3341       </div>
3342       <div class="date">
3343          1st March 2017
3344       </div>
3345       <div class="body">
3346         <p>A few days ago I ordered a small batch of
3347 <a href="http://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/">the ChaosKey</a>, a small
3348 USB dongle for generating entropy created by Bdale Garbee and Keith
3349 Packard.  Yesterday it arrived, and I am very happy to report that it
3350 work great!  According to its designers, to get it to work out of the
3351 box, you need the Linux kernel version 4.1 or later.  I tested on a
3352 Debian Stretch machine (kernel version 4.9), and there it worked just
3353 fine, increasing the available entropy very quickly.  I wrote a small
3354 test oneliner to test.  It first print the current entropy level,
3355 drain /dev/random, and then print the entropy level for five seconds.
3356 Here is the situation without the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
3357
3358 <blockquote><pre>
3359 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
3360   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
3361   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
3362      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
3363      sleep 1; \
3364   done
3365 300
3366 0+1 oppføringer inn
3367 0+1 oppføringer ut
3368 28 byte kopiert, 0,000264565 s, 106 kB/s
3369 4
3370 8
3371 12
3372 17
3373 21
3374 %
3375 </pre></blockquote>
3376
3377 <p>The entropy level increases by 3-4 every second.  In such case any
3378 application requiring random bits (like a HTTPS enabled web server)
3379 will halt and wait for more entrpy.  And here is the situation with
3380 the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
3381
3382 <blockquote><pre>
3383 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
3384   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
3385   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
3386      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
3387      sleep 1; \
3388   done
3389 1079
3390 0+1 oppføringer inn
3391 0+1 oppføringer ut
3392 104 byte kopiert, 0,000487647 s, 213 kB/s
3393 433
3394 1028
3395 1031
3396 1035
3397 1038
3398 %
3399 </pre></blockquote>
3400
3401 <p>Quite the difference. :) I bought a few more than I need, in case
3402 someone want to buy one here in Norway. :)</p>
3403
3404 <p>Update: The dongle was presented at Debconf last year.  You might
3405 find <a href="https://debconf16.debconf.org/talks/94/">the talk
3406 recording illuminating</a>.  It explains exactly what the source of
3407 randomness is, if you are unable to spot it from the schema drawing
3408 available from the ChaosKey web site linked at the start of this blog
3409 post.</p>
3410
3411       </div>
3412       <div class="tags">
3413
3414
3415         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3416
3417
3418       </div>
3419     </div>
3420     <div class="padding"></div>
3421
3422     <div class="entry">
3423       <div class="title">
3424         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Where_did_that_package_go___mdash__geolocated_IP_traceroute.html">Where did that package go? &mdash; geolocated IP traceroute</a>
3425       </div>
3426       <div class="date">
3427          9th January 2017
3428       </div>
3429       <div class="body">
3430         <p>Did you ever wonder where the web trafic really flow to reach the
3431 web servers, and who own the network equipment it is flowing through?
3432 It is possible to get a glimpse of this from using traceroute, but it
3433 is hard to find all the details.  Many years ago, I wrote a system to
3434 map the Norwegian Internet (trying to figure out if our plans for a
3435 network game service would get low enough latency, and who we needed
3436 to talk to about setting up game servers close to the users.  Back
3437 then I used traceroute output from many locations (I asked my friends
3438 to run a script and send me their traceroute output) to create the
3439 graph and the map.  The output from traceroute typically look like
3440 this:
3441
3442 <p><pre>
3443 traceroute to www.stortinget.no (85.88.67.10), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
3444  1  uio-gw10.uio.no (129.240.202.1)  0.447 ms  0.486 ms  0.621 ms
3445  2  uio-gw8.uio.no (129.240.24.229)  0.467 ms  0.578 ms  0.675 ms
3446  3  oslo-gw1.uninett.no (128.39.65.17)  0.385 ms  0.373 ms  0.358 ms
3447  4  te3-1-2.br1.fn3.as2116.net (193.156.90.3)  1.174 ms  1.172 ms  1.153 ms
3448  5  he16-1-1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (195.0.244.234)  2.627 ms he16-1-1.cr2.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.244.48)  3.172 ms he16-1-1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (195.0.244.234)  2.857 ms
3449  6  ae1.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.242.39)  0.662 ms  0.637 ms ae0.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.242.23)  0.622 ms
3450  7  89.191.10.146 (89.191.10.146)  0.931 ms  0.917 ms  0.955 ms
3451  8  * * *
3452  9  * * *
3453 [...]
3454 </pre></p>
3455
3456 <p>This show the DNS names and IP addresses of (at least some of the)
3457 network equipment involved in getting the data traffic from me to the
3458 www.stortinget.no server, and how long it took in milliseconds for a
3459 package to reach the equipment and return to me.  Three packages are
3460 sent, and some times the packages do not follow the same path.  This
3461 is shown for hop 5, where three different IP addresses replied to the
3462 traceroute request.</p>
3463
3464 <p>There are many ways to measure trace routes.  Other good traceroute
3465 implementations I use are traceroute (using ICMP packages) mtr (can do
3466 both ICMP, UDP and TCP) and scapy (python library with ICMP, UDP, TCP
3467 traceroute and a lot of other capabilities).  All of them are easily
3468 available in <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>.</p>
3469
3470 <p>This time around, I wanted to know the geographic location of
3471 different route points, to visualize how visiting a web page spread
3472 information about the visit to a lot of servers around the globe.  The
3473 background is that a web site today often will ask the browser to get
3474 from many servers the parts (for example HTML, JSON, fonts,
3475 JavaScript, CSS, video) required to display the content.  This will
3476 leak information about the visit to those controlling these servers
3477 and anyone able to peek at the data traffic passing by (like your ISP,
3478 the ISPs backbone provider, FRA, GCHQ, NSA and others).</p>
3479
3480 <p>Lets pick an example, the Norwegian parliament web site
3481 www.stortinget.no.  It is read daily by all members of parliament and
3482 their staff, as well as political journalists, activits and many other
3483 citizens of Norway.  A visit to the www.stortinget.no web site will
3484 ask your browser to contact 8 other servers: ajax.googleapis.com,
3485 insights.hotjar.com, script.hotjar.com, static.hotjar.com,
3486 stats.g.doubleclick.net, www.google-analytics.com,
3487 www.googletagmanager.com and www.netigate.se.  I extracted this by
3488 asking <a href="http://phantomjs.org/">PhantomJS</a> to visit the
3489 Stortinget web page and tell me all the URLs PhantomJS downloaded to
3490 render the page (in HAR format using
3491 <a href="https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/examples/netsniff.js">their
3492 netsniff example</a>.  I am very grateful to Gorm for showing me how
3493 to do this).  My goal is to visualize network traces to all IP
3494 addresses behind these DNS names, do show where visitors personal
3495 information is spread when visiting the page.</p>
3496
3497 <p align="center"><a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml"><img
3498 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geoip-small.png" alt="map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using GeoIP"/></a></p>
3499
3500 <p>When I had a look around for options, I could not find any good
3501 free software tools to do this, and decided I needed my own traceroute
3502 wrapper outputting KML based on locations looked up using GeoIP.  KML
3503 is easy to work with and easy to generate, and understood by several
3504 of the GIS tools I have available.  I got good help from by NUUG
3505 colleague Anders Einar with this, and the result can be seen in
3506 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/kmltraceroute">my
3507 kmltraceroute git repository</a>.  Unfortunately, the quality of the
3508 free GeoIP databases I could find (and the for-pay databases my
3509 friends had access to) is not up to the task.  The IP addresses of
3510 central Internet infrastructure would typically be placed near the
3511 controlling companies main office, and not where the router is really
3512 located, as you can see from <a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml">the
3513 KML file I created</a> using the GeoLite City dataset from MaxMind.
3514
3515 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg"><img
3516 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy-small.png" alt="scapy traceroute graph for URLs used by www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
3517
3518 <p>I also had a look at the visual traceroute graph created by
3519 <a href="http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/">the scrapy project</a>,
3520 showing IP network ownership (aka AS owner) for the IP address in
3521 question.
3522 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg">The
3523 graph display a lot of useful information about the traceroute in SVG
3524 format</a>, and give a good indication on who control the network
3525 equipment involved, but it do not include geolocation.  This graph
3526 make it possible to see the information is made available at least for
3527 UNINETT, Catchcom, Stortinget, Nordunet, Google, Amazon, Telia, Level
3528 3 Communications and NetDNA.</p>
3529
3530 <p align="center"><a href="https://geotraceroute.com/index.php?node=4&host=www.stortinget.no"><img
3531 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-small.png" alt="example geotraceroute view for www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
3532
3533 <p>In the process, I came across the
3534 <a href="https://geotraceroute.com/">web service GeoTraceroute</a> by
3535 Salim Gasmi.  Its methology of combining guesses based on DNS names,
3536 various location databases and finally use latecy times to rule out
3537 candidate locations seemed to do a very good job of guessing correct
3538 geolocation.  But it could only do one trace at the time, did not have
3539 a sensor in Norway and did not make the geolocations easily available
3540 for postprocessing.  So I contacted the developer and asked if he
3541 would be willing to share the code (he refused until he had time to
3542 clean it up), but he was interested in providing the geolocations in a
3543 machine readable format, and willing to set up a sensor in Norway.  So
3544 since yesterday, it is possible to run traces from Norway in this
3545 service thanks to a sensor node set up by
3546 <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG assosiation</a>, and get the
3547 trace in KML format for further processing.</p>
3548
3549 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.kml"><img
3550 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.png" alt="map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using geotraceroute"/></a></p>
3551
3552 <p>Here we can see a lot of trafic passes Sweden on its way to
3553 Denmark, Germany, Holland and Ireland.  Plenty of places where the
3554 Snowden confirmations verified the traffic is read by various actors
3555 without your best interest as their top priority.</p>
3556
3557 <p>Combining KML files is trivial using a text editor, so I could loop
3558 over all the hosts behind the urls imported by www.stortinget.no and
3559 ask for the KML file from GeoTraceroute, and create a combined KML
3560 file with all the traces (unfortunately only one of the IP addresses
3561 behind the DNS name is traced this time.  To get them all, one would
3562 have to request traces using IP number instead of DNS names from
3563 GeoTraceroute).  That might be the next step in this project.</p>
3564
3565 <p>Armed with these tools, I find it a lot easier to figure out where
3566 the IP traffic moves and who control the boxes involved in moving it.
3567 And every time the link crosses for example the Swedish border, we can
3568 be sure Swedish Signal Intelligence (FRA) is listening, as GCHQ do in
3569 Britain and NSA in USA and cables around the globe.  (Hm, what should
3570 we tell them? :) Keep that in mind if you ever send anything
3571 unencrypted over the Internet.</p>
3572
3573 <p>PS: KML files are drawn using
3574 <a href="http://ivanrublev.me/kml/">the KML viewer from Ivan
3575 Rublev<a/>, as it was less cluttered than the local Linux application
3576 Marble.  There are heaps of other options too.</p>
3577
3578 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3579 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3580 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3581
3582       </div>
3583       <div class="tags">
3584
3585
3586         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
3587
3588
3589       </div>
3590     </div>
3591     <div class="padding"></div>
3592
3593     <div class="entry">
3594       <div class="title">
3595         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Appstream_just_learned_how_to_map_hardware_to_packages_too_.html">Appstream just learned how to map hardware to packages too!</a>
3596       </div>
3597       <div class="date">
3598         23rd December 2016
3599       </div>
3600       <div class="body">
3601         <p>I received a very nice Christmas present today.  As my regular
3602 readers probably know, I have been working on the
3603 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the Isenkram
3604 system</a> for many years.  The goal of the Isenkram system is to make
3605 it easier for users to figure out what to install to get a given piece
3606 of hardware to work in Debian, and a key part of this system is a way
3607 to map hardware to packages.  Isenkram have its own mapping database,
3608 and also uses data provided by each package using the AppStream
3609 metadata format.  And today,
3610 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/appstream">AppStream</a> in
3611 Debian learned to look up hardware the same way Isenkram is doing it,
3612 ie using fnmatch():</p>
3613
3614 <p><pre>
3615 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias \
3616   usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
3617 Identifier: pymissile [generic]
3618 Name: pymissile
3619 Summary: Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
3620 Package: pymissile
3621 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias usb:v0694p0002d0000
3622 Identifier: libnxt [generic]
3623 Name: libnxt
3624 Summary: utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick
3625 Package: libnxt
3626 ---
3627 Identifier: t2n [generic]
3628 Name: t2n
3629 Summary: Simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
3630 Package: t2n
3631 ---
3632 Identifier: python-nxt [generic]
3633 Name: python-nxt
3634 Summary: Python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot
3635 Package: python-nxt
3636 ---
3637 Identifier: nbc [generic]
3638 Name: nbc
3639 Summary: C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
3640 Package: nbc
3641 %
3642 </pre></p>
3643
3644 <p>A similar query can be done using the combined AppStream and
3645 Isenkram databases using the isenkram-lookup tool:</p>
3646
3647 <p><pre>
3648 % isenkram-lookup usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
3649 pymissile
3650 % isenkram-lookup usb:v0694p0002d0000
3651 libnxt
3652 nbc
3653 python-nxt
3654 t2n
3655 %
3656 </pre></p>
3657
3658 <p>You can find modalias values relevant for your machine using
3659 <tt>cat $(find /sys/devices/ -name modalias)</tt>.
3660
3661 <p>If you want to make this system a success and help Debian users
3662 make the most of the hardware they have, please
3663 help<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add
3664 AppStream metadata for your package following the guidelines</a>
3665 documented in the wiki.  So far only 11 packages provide such
3666 information, among the several hundred hardware specific packages in
3667 Debian. The Isenkram database on the other hand contain 101 packages,
3668 mostly related to USB dongles.  Most of the packages with hardware
3669 mapping in AppStream are LEGO Mindstorms related, because I have, as
3670 part of my involvement in
3671 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the Debian LEGO
3672 team</a> given priority to making sure LEGO users get proposed the
3673 complete set of packages in Debian for that particular hardware.  The
3674 team also got a nice Christmas present today.  The
3675 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nxt-firmware">nxt-firmware
3676 package</a> made it into Debian.  With this package in place, it is
3677 now possible to use the LEGO Mindstorms NXT unit with only free
3678 software, as the nxt-firmware package contain the source and firmware
3679 binaries for the NXT brick.</p>
3680
3681 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3682 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3683 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3684
3685       </div>
3686       <div class="tags">
3687
3688
3689         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3690
3691
3692       </div>
3693     </div>
3694     <div class="padding"></div>
3695
3696     <div class="entry">
3697       <div class="title">
3698         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_updated_with_a_lot_more_hardware_package_mappings.html">Isenkram updated with a lot more hardware-package mappings</a>
3699       </div>
3700       <div class="date">
3701         20th December 2016
3702       </div>
3703       <div class="body">
3704         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
3705 system</a> I wrote two years ago to make it easier in Debian to find
3706 and install packages to get your hardware dongles to work, is still
3707 going strong.  It is a system to look up the hardware present on or
3708 connected to the current system, and map the hardware to Debian
3709 packages.  It can either be done using the tools in isenkram-cli or
3710 using the user space daemon in the isenkram package.  The latter will
3711 notify you, when inserting new hardware, about what packages to
3712 install to get the dongle working.  It will even provide a button to
3713 click on to ask packagekit to install the packages.</p>
3714
3715 <p>Here is an command line example from my Thinkpad laptop:</p>
3716
3717 <p><pre>
3718 % isenkram-lookup
3719 bluez
3720 cheese
3721 ethtool
3722 fprintd
3723 fprintd-demo
3724 gkrellm-thinkbat
3725 hdapsd
3726 libpam-fprintd
3727 pidgin-blinklight
3728 thinkfan
3729 tlp
3730 tp-smapi-dkms
3731 tp-smapi-source
3732 tpb
3733 %
3734 </pre></p>
3735
3736 <p>It can also list the firware package providing firmware requested
3737 by the load kernel modules, which in my case is an empty list because
3738 I have all the firmware my machine need:
3739
3740 <p><pre>
3741 % /usr/sbin/isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
3742 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
3743 %
3744 </pre></p>
3745
3746 <p>The last few days I had a look at several of the around 250
3747 packages in Debian with udev rules.  These seem like good candidates
3748 to install when a given hardware dongle is inserted, and I found
3749 several that should be proposed by isenkram.  I have not had time to
3750 check all of them, but am happy to report that now there are 97
3751 packages packages mapped to hardware by Isenkram.  11 of these
3752 packages provide hardware mapping using AppStream, while the rest are
3753 listed in the modaliases file provided in isenkram.</p>
3754
3755 <p>These are the packages with hardware mappings at the moment.  The
3756 <strong>marked packages</strong> are also announcing their hardware
3757 support using AppStream, for everyone to use:</p>
3758
3759 <p>air-quality-sensor, alsa-firmware-loaders, argyll,
3760 <strong>array-info</strong>, avarice, avrdude, b43-fwcutter,
3761 bit-babbler, bluez, bluez-firmware, <strong>brltty</strong>,
3762 <strong>broadcom-sta-dkms</strong>, calibre, cgminer, cheese, colord,
3763 <strong>colorhug-client</strong>, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux,
3764 dfu-util, dolphin-emu, ekeyd, ethtool, firmware-ipw2x00, fprintd,
3765 fprintd-demo, <strong>galileo</strong>, gkrellm-thinkbat, gphoto2,
3766 gpsbabel, gpsbabel-gui, gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, gr-fcdproplus,
3767 gr-osmosdr, gtkpod, hackrf, hdapsd, hdmi2usb-udev, hpijs-ppds, hplip,
3768 ipw3945-source, ipw3945d, kde-config-tablet, kinect-audio-setup,
3769 <strong>libnxt</strong>, libpam-fprintd, <strong>lomoco</strong>,
3770 madwimax, minidisc-utils, mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mtkbabel,
3771 <strong>nbc</strong>, <strong>nqc</strong>, nut-hal-drivers, ola,
3772 open-vm-toolbox, open-vm-tools, openambit, pcgminer, pcmciautils,
3773 pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, printer-driver-splix,
3774 <strong>pymissile</strong>, python-nxt, qlandkartegt,
3775 qlandkartegt-garmin, rosegarden, rt2x00-source, sispmctl,
3776 soapysdr-module-hackrf, solaar, squeak-plugins-scratch, sunxi-tools,
3777 <strong>t2n</strong>, thinkfan, thinkfinger-tools, tlp, tp-smapi-dkms,
3778 tp-smapi-source, tpb, tucnak, uhd-host, usbmuxd, viking,
3779 virtualbox-ose-guest-x11, w1retap, xawtv, xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse,
3780 xserver-xorg-input-wacom, xserver-xorg-video-qxl,
3781 xserver-xorg-video-vmware, yubikey-personalization and
3782 zd1211-firmware</p>
3783
3784 <p>If you know of other packages, please let me know with a wishlist
3785 bug report against the isenkram-cli package, and ask the package
3786 maintainer to
3787 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add AppStream
3788 metadata according to the guidelines</a> to provide the information
3789 for everyone.  In time, I hope to get rid of the isenkram specific
3790 hardware mapping and depend exclusively on AppStream.</p>
3791
3792 <p>Note, the AppStream metadata for broadcom-sta-dkms is matching too
3793 much hardware, and suggest that the package with with any ethernet
3794 card.  See <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/838735">bug #838735</a> for
3795 the details.  I hope the maintainer find time to address it soon.  In
3796 the mean time I provide an override in isenkram.</p>
3797
3798       </div>
3799       <div class="tags">
3800
3801
3802         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3803
3804
3805       </div>
3806     </div>
3807     <div class="padding"></div>
3808
3809     <div class="entry">
3810       <div class="title">
3811         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oolite__a_life_in_space_as_vagabond_and_mercenary___nice_free_software.html">Oolite, a life in space as vagabond and mercenary - nice free software</a>
3812       </div>
3813       <div class="date">
3814         11th December 2016
3815       </div>
3816       <div class="body">
3817         <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-12-11-nice-oolite.png"/></p>
3818
3819 <p>In my early years, I played
3820 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classic_Elite">the epic game
3821 Elite</a> on my PC.  I spent many months trading and fighting in
3822 space, and reached the 'elite' fighting status before I moved on.  The
3823 original Elite game was available on Commodore 64 and the IBM PC
3824 edition I played had a 64 KB executable.  I am still impressed today
3825 that the authors managed to squeeze both a 3D engine and details about
3826 more than 2000 planet systems across 7 galaxies into a binary so
3827 small.</p>
3828
3829 <p>I have known about <a href="http://www.oolite.org/">the free
3830 software game Oolite inspired by Elite</a> for a while, but did not
3831 really have time to test it properly until a few days ago.  It was
3832 great to discover that my old knowledge about trading routes were
3833 still valid.  But my fighting and flying abilities were gone, so I had
3834 to retrain to be able to dock on a space station.  And I am still not
3835 able to make much resistance when I am attacked by pirates, so I
3836 bougth and mounted the most powerful laser in the rear to be able to
3837 put up at least some resistance while fleeing for my life. :)</p>
3838
3839 <p>When playing Elite in the late eighties, I had to discover
3840 everything on my own, and I had long lists of prices seen on different
3841 planets to be able to decide where to trade what.  This time I had the
3842 advantages of the
3843 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page">Elite wiki</a>,
3844 where information about each planet is easily available with common
3845 price ranges and suggested trading routes.  This improved my ability
3846 to earn money and I have been able to earn enough to buy a lot of
3847 useful equipent in a few days.  I believe I originally played for
3848 months before I could get a docking computer, while now I could get it
3849 after less then a week.</p>
3850
3851 <p>If you like science fiction and dreamed of a life as a vagabond in
3852 space, you should try out Oolite.  It is available for Linux, MacOSX
3853 and Windows, and is included in Debian and derivatives since 2011.</p>
3854
3855 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3856 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3857 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3858
3859       </div>
3860       <div class="tags">
3861
3862
3863         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
3864
3865
3866       </div>
3867     </div>
3868     <div class="padding"></div>
3869
3870     <div class="entry">
3871       <div class="title">
3872         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html">Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata</a>
3873       </div>
3874       <div class="date">
3875         25th November 2016
3876       </div>
3877       <div class="body">
3878         <p>Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian
3879 installation system, observing how using
3880 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">eatmydata
3881 could speed up the installation</a> quite a bit.  My testing measured
3882 speedup around 20-40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around
3883 1000 packages from within the installer.  The eatmydata package
3884 provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing.  This is a bit
3885 risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will
3886 stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a
3887 machine crashes at an inconvenient time.  But for an installation, if
3888 the machine crashes during installation the process is normally
3889 restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed
3890 up the process make perfect sense.
3891
3892 <p>I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable
3893 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libeatmydata">eatmydata</a>,
3894 but did not have time to push it any further.  But a few months ago I
3895 picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer
3896 Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation
3897 speedup in Debian.  Thanks to our cooperation There is now an
3898 eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply
3899 enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the
3900 quicker installations.  It can be enabled using preseeding.  The
3901 following untested kernel argument should do the trick:</p>
3902
3903 <blockquote><pre>
3904 preseed/early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
3905 </pre></blockquote>
3906
3907 <p>This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i
3908 environment early in the installation sequence.  Having it installed
3909 in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just
3910 after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian
3911 system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata.  This is enough to
3912 speed up the installation process.  There is a proposal to
3913 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/841153">extend the idea a bit further
3914 by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf</a>, but I have not
3915 tested its impact.</p>
3916
3917
3918       </div>
3919       <div class="tags">
3920
3921
3922         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3923
3924
3925       </div>
3926     </div>
3927     <div class="padding"></div>
3928
3929     <div class="entry">
3930       <div class="title">
3931         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oversette_bokm_l_til_nynorsk__enklere_enn_du_tror_takket_v_re_Apertium.html">Oversette bokmål til nynorsk, enklere enn du tror takket være Apertium</a>
3932       </div>
3933       <div class="date">
3934         24th November 2016
3935       </div>
3936       <div class="body">
3937         <p>I Norge er det mange som trenger å skrive både bokmål og nynorsk.
3938 Eksamensoppgaver, offentlige brev og nyheter er eksempler på tekster
3939 der det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skoleoppgavene som
3940 elever over det ganske land skal levere inn hvert år.  Det mange ikke
3941 vet er at selv om de kommersielle alternativene
3942 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google Translate</a> og
3943 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing Translator</a> ikke kan
3944 bidra med å oversette mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finnes det et
3945 utmerket fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Oversetterverktøyet
3946 Apertium har støtte for en rekke språkkombinasjoner, og takket være
3947 den utrettelige innsatsen til blant annet Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
3948 en bruke webtjenesten til å fylle inn en tekst på bokmål eller
3949 nynorsk, og få den automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
3950 Resultatet er ikke perfekt, men et svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og til
3951 er resultatet så bra at det kan benyttes uten endringer.  Jeg vet
3952 f.eks. at store deler av Joomla ble oversatt til nynorsk ved hjelp
3953 Apertium.  Høres det ut som noe du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så fall
3954 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
3955 teksten din i webskjemaet der.
3956
3957 <p>Hvis du trenger maskinell tilgang til den bakenforliggende
3958 teknologien kan du enten installere pakken
3959 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">apertium-nno-nob</a>
3960 på en Debian-maskin eller bruke web-API-et tilgjengelig fra
3961 api.apertium.org.  Se
3962 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">API-dokumentasjonen</a>
3963 for detaljer om web-API-et.  Her kan du se hvordan resultatet blir for
3964 denne teksten som ble skrevet på bokmål over maskinoversatt til
3965 nynorsk.</p>
3966
3967 <hr/>
3968
3969 <p>I Noreg er det mange som treng å skriva både bokmål og nynorsk.
3970 Eksamensoppgåver, offentlege brev og nyhende er døme på tekster der
3971 det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skuleoppgåvene som
3972 elevar over det ganske land skal levera inn kvart år.  Det mange ikkje
3973 veit er at sjølv om dei kommersielle alternativa
3974 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google *Translate</a> og
3975 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing *Translator</a> ikkje
3976 kan bidra med å omsetja mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finst det eit
3977 utmerka fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Omsetjarverktøyet
3978 *Apertium har støtte for ei rekkje språkkombinasjonar, og takka vera
3979 den utrøyttelege innsatsen til blant anna Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
3980 ein bruka *webtjenesten til å fylla inn ei tekst på bokmål eller
3981 nynorsk, og få den *automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
3982 Resultatet er ikkje perfekt, men eit svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og
3983 til er resultatet så bra at det kan nyttast utan endringar.  Eg veit
3984 t.d. at store delar av *Joomla vart omsett til nynorsk ved hjelp
3985 *Apertium.  Høyrast det ut som noko du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så
3986 fall <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">*Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
3987 teksta di i *webskjemaet der.
3988
3989 <p>Viss du treng *maskinell tilgjenge til den *bakenforliggende
3990 teknologien kan du anten installera pakken
3991 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">*apertium-*nno-*nob</a>
3992 på ein *Debian-maskin eller bruka *web-*API-eit tilgjengeleg frå
3993 *api.*apertium.org.  Sjå
3994 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">*API-dokumentasjonen</a>
3995 for detaljar om *web-*API-eit.  Her kan du sjå korleis resultatet vert
3996 for denne teksta som vart skreva på bokmål over *maskinoversatt til
3997 nynorsk.</p>
3998
3999       </div>
4000       <div class="tags">
4001
4002
4003         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
4004
4005
4006       </div>
4007     </div>
4008     <div class="padding"></div>
4009
4010     <div class="entry">
4011       <div class="title">
4012         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_profiler_for_multi_threaded_software_is_now_in_Debian.html">Coz profiler for multi-threaded software is now in Debian</a>
4013       </div>
4014       <div class="date">
4015         13th November 2016
4016       </div>
4017       <div class="body">
4018         <p><a href="http://coz-profiler.org/">The Coz profiler</a>, a nice
4019 profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented
4020 multi-threaded program, finally
4021 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/coz-profiler">made it into
4022 Debian unstable yesterday</A>.  Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many
4023 months since
4024 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">I
4025 blogged about the coz tool</a> in August working with upstream to make
4026 it suitable for Debian.  There are still issues with clang
4027 compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized
4028 JavaScript libraries.</p>
4029
4030 <p>To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:</p>
4031
4032 <p><blockquote>
4033 <tt>coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info</tt>
4034 </blockquote></p>
4035
4036 <p>This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working
4037 directory with the profiling information.  This is then given to a
4038 JavaScript application provided in the package and available from
4039 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">a project web page</a>.
4040 To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:</p>
4041
4042 <p><blockquote>
4043 <tt>sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm</tt>
4044 </blockquote></p>
4045
4046 <p>See the project home page and the
4047 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">USENIX
4048 ;login: article on Coz</a> for more information on how it is
4049 working.</p>
4050
4051       </div>
4052       <div class="tags">
4053
4054
4055         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4056
4057
4058       </div>
4059     </div>
4060     <div class="padding"></div>
4061
4062     <div class="entry">
4063       <div class="title">
4064         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html">My own self balancing Lego Segway</a>
4065       </div>
4066       <div class="date">
4067          4th November 2016
4068       </div>
4069       <div class="body">
4070         <p>A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT
4071 <a href="mindstorms.lego.com">Mindstorms</a> controller as a birthday
4072 present.  It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to
4073 build a Segway like balancing lego robot.  I had already built
4074 <a href="http://www.nxtprograms.com/NXT2/segway/">a simple balancing
4075 robot</a> with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the
4076 NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well.  It
4077 could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light
4078 condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and
4079 would fall over after a short while.  I wanted something more robust,
4080 and had
4081 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NGY1044">the
4082 gyro sensor from HiTechnic</a> I believed would solve it on my
4083 wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my
4084 loved ones. :)</p>
4085
4086 <p>Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it
4087 since then.  But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for
4088 lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for
4089 building
4090 <a href="http://www.hitechnic.com/blog/gyro-sensor/htway/">the
4091 HTWay</a>, a segway like balancing robot.  Build instructions and
4092 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/upload/786-HTWayC.nxc">source
4093 code</a> was included, so it was just a question of putting it all
4094 together.  And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the
4095 compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in
4096 Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour.  The resulting robot
4097 do not look very impressive in its simplicity:</p>
4098
4099 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-robot.jpeg"></p>
4100
4101 <p>Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the
4102 design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task
4103 (taskControl).  I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program
4104 working without that sensor present.  Now it balances just fine until
4105 the battery status run low:</p>
4106
4107 <p align="center"><video width="70%" controls="true">
4108    <source src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-balancing.ogv" type="video/ogg">
4109 </video></p>
4110
4111 <p>Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote
4112 control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.</p>
4113
4114 <p>If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools
4115 they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative
4116 distributions like Ubuntu, check out
4117 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the LEGO designers
4118 project page</a> and join the Debian LEGO team.  Personally I own a
4119 RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the
4120 Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they
4121 should.</p>
4122
4123       </div>
4124       <div class="tags">
4125
4126
4127         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4128
4129
4130       </div>
4131     </div>
4132     <div class="padding"></div>
4133
4134     <div class="entry">
4135       <div class="title">
4136         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile phone</a>
4137       </div>
4138       <div class="date">
4139         10th October 2016
4140       </div>
4141       <div class="body">
4142         <p>In July
4143 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">I
4144 wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working</a> without
4145 the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone).  It is
4146 time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.</p>
4147
4148 <p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
4149 it regularly to chat with my loved ones.  I had a major snag at the
4150 end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
4151 setup, identity and keys.  The reason behind this major mess was
4152 running out of disk space.  To avoid that ever happening again I have
4153 started storing everything in <tt>userdata/</tt> in git, to be able to
4154 roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake.  I
4155 had to use it once after introducing the git backup.  When rolling
4156 back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
4157 in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
4158 problem.  I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
4159 protocol to detect rollback attacks.  The git repository is rather big
4160 (674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
4161 content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
4162 time.</p>
4163
4164 <p>I've also hit the 90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
4165 make it impossible to send messages using Signal.  I could still
4166 receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
4167 I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
4168 upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
4169 protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
4170 thus try to keep the number of support requests down.</p>
4171
4172 <p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
4173 making the old patch fail to apply cleanly.  Below is an updated
4174 patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal.  The
4175 original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
4176 and call a function from there.  I got help from a friend with more
4177 JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
4178 button instead.  This mean that to get started you just need to run
4179 the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
4180 now.  I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to 90 days
4181 in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.</p>
4182
4183 <p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:</p>
4184
4185 <ol>
4186
4187 <li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
4188 browser you need.  Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
4189 know, so you need to install it.
4190
4191 <pre>
4192 apt install git tor chromium
4193 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
4194 </pre></li>
4195
4196 <li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
4197 block below.</li>
4198
4199 <li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
4200 <tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app</tt>).
4201
4202 <li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
4203 number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
4204 verification code and enter it into the form field and press
4205 'Register'.  Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
4206 username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.</li>
4207
4208 <li>You can now use Signal to contact others.  Note, new contacts do
4209 not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
4210 no way to assign names to Contacts.  There is also no way to create or
4211 update chat groups.  I suspect this is because the web app do not have
4212 a associated contact database.</li>
4213
4214 </ol>
4215
4216 <p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
4217 main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
4218 corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
4219 Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon).  See for
4220 example
4221 <a href="https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
4222 LibreSignal issue tracker</a> for a thread documenting the authors
4223 view on these issues.  But the network effect is strong in this case,
4224 and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
4225 Signal.  Perhaps we can all move to <a href="https://ring.cx/">Ring</a>
4226 once it <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
4227 laptop</a>?  It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
4228 in <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian</a> and
4229 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu</a>, but not
4230 working on Debian Stable.</p>
4231
4232 <p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
4233 working.  It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
4234 make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:</p>
4235
4236 <pre>
4237 cd Signal-Desktop; cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p1
4238 diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
4239 index 24b4c1d..579345f 100644
4240 --- a/js/background.js
4241 +++ b/js/background.js
4242 @@ -33,9 +33,9 @@
4243          });
4244      });
4245
4246 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
4247 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
4248      var SERVER_PORTS = [80, 4433, 8443];
4249 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
4250 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
4251      var messageReceiver;
4252      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
4253          if (messageReceiver) {
4254 diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
4255 index 639aeae..beb91c3 100644
4256 --- a/js/expire.js
4257 +++ b/js/expire.js
4258 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
4259  ;(function() {
4260      'use strict';
4261 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
4262 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (90 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
4263
4264      window.extension = window.extension || {};
4265
4266 diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
4267 index 7816f4f..1d6233b 100644
4268 --- a/js/views/install_view.js
4269 +++ b/js/views/install_view.js
4270 @@ -38,7 +38,8 @@
4271              return {
4272                  'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this, 1),
4273                  'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this, 2),
4274 -                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3)
4275 +                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3),
4276 +                'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
4277              };
4278          },
4279          clearQR: function() {
4280 diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
4281 index dc0f28e..8d709f6 100644
4282 --- a/options.html
4283 +++ b/options.html
4284 @@ -14,7 +14,10 @@
4285          &lt;div class='nav'>
4286            &lt;h1>{{ installWelcome }}&lt;/h1>
4287            &lt;p>{{ installTagline }}&lt;/p>
4288 -          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a> &lt;/div>
4289 +          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a>
4290 +           &lt;br> &lt;a class="button callreg">Register without mobile phone&lt;/a>
4291 +
4292 +         &lt;/div>
4293            &lt;span class='dot step1 selected'>&lt;/span>
4294            &lt;span class='dot step2'>&lt;/span>
4295            &lt;span class='dot step3'>&lt;/span>
4296 --- /dev/null   2016-10-07 09:55:13.730181472 +0200
4297 +++ b/run-signal-app   2016-10-10 08:54:09.434172391 +0200
4298 @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
4299 +#!/bin/sh
4300 +set -e
4301 +cd $(dirname $0)
4302 +mkdir -p userdata
4303 +userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
4304 +if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
4305 +    (cd $userdata && git init)
4306 +fi
4307 +(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
4308 +exec chromium \
4309 +  --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
4310 +  --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
4311 EOF
4312 chmod a+rx run-signal-app
4313 </pre>
4314
4315 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4316 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4317 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4318
4319       </div>
4320       <div class="tags">
4321
4322
4323         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
4324
4325
4326       </div>
4327     </div>
4328     <div class="padding"></div>
4329
4330     <div class="entry">
4331       <div class="title">
4332         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html">Isenkram, Appstream and udev make life as a LEGO builder easier</a>
4333       </div>
4334       <div class="date">
4335          7th October 2016
4336       </div>
4337       <div class="body">
4338         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
4339 system</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
4340 packages support the hardware in a given machine.  The command line
4341 tool <tt>isenkram-lookup</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
4342 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
4343 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
4344 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
4345 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
4346 while using the computer.  For example, if you plug in a smart card
4347 reader, the system will ask if you want to install <tt>pcscd</tt> if
4348 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
4349 camera the system will ask if you want to install <tt>cheese</tt> if
4350 cheese is currently missing.  This already work just fine.</p>
4351
4352 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
4353 package names.  When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
4354 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
4355 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
4356 http.  This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
4357 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.</p>
4358
4359 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings.  The modalias
4360 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
4361 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
4362 globbing.  It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
4363 identifiers.</p>
4364
4365 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
4366 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
4367 isenkram propose obsolete packages too.  But along came AppStream, a
4368 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
4369 software packages.  When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
4370 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
4371 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
4372 mapping hardware to packages.  This idea was accepted and AppStream is
4373 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
4374 distribution neutral way.  I wrote
4375 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
4376 recipe on how to add such meta-information</a> in a blog post last
4377 December.  If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
4378 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.</p>
4379
4380 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
4381 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream.  The effect is
4382 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
4383 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
4384 it working.  The intention is that this should allow the local user to
4385 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
4386 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.</p>
4387
4388 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
4389 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
4390 annoying.  The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
4391 the USB device for programming the unit.  This used to work, but no
4392 longer in Jessie and Stretch.  After some investigation and asking
4393 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
4394 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices.  The
4395 ConsoleKit mechanism from <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>
4396 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
4397 plugdev group during login.  Michael Biebl told me that this method
4398 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead.  This was good
4399 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
4400 directory like LDAP.  Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
4401 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
4402 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
4403 setup.  Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
4404 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.</p>
4405
4406 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'.  It can either be
4407 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
4408 /lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices.  As the
4409 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
4410 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages.  Here
4411 is one example.  For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
4412 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/60-nqc.rules</tt> file now look like this:
4413
4414 <p><pre>
4415 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="0001", \
4416     SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
4417 </pre></p>
4418
4419 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end.  I suspect all
4420 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
4421 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
4422 <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>).  Perhaps a lintian check should be created
4423 to detect this?</p>
4424
4425 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
4426 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
4427 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
4428 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>.  If it is, I guess the
4429 indirect method is the preferred way.  Michael
4430 <a href="https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
4431 documentation from the systemd project</a> and I hope it will make
4432 this clearer.  For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
4433 is already handled by <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>, and add the tag
4434 directly if no such class exist.</p>
4435
4436 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
4437 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
4438 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
4439
4440 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
4441 please join us on our IRC channel
4442 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> and join
4443 the <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
4444 LEGO team</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday.  A mailing
4445 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)</p>
4446
4447 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4448 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4449 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4450
4451       </div>
4452       <div class="tags">
4453
4454
4455         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>.
4456
4457
4458       </div>
4459     </div>
4460     <div class="padding"></div>
4461
4462     <div class="entry">
4463       <div class="title">
4464         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html">First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook now public</a>
4465       </div>
4466       <div class="date">
4467         30th August 2016
4468       </div>
4469       <div class="body">
4470         <p>In April we
4471 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
4472 to work</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
4473 how to set up and administrate a Debian system.  Today I am happy to
4474 report that the first draft is now publicly available.  You can find
4475 it on <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
4476 Administrator's Handbook page</a> (under Other languages).  The first
4477 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
4478 proofreading the content.  If you want to help out, please start
4479 contributing using
4480 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
4481 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
4482 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
4483 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
4484 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
4485 contributors</a>.  A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
4486 and update weblate if you find errors.</p>
4487
4488 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
4489 electronic form.</p>
4490
4491       </div>
4492       <div class="tags">
4493
4494
4495         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4496
4497
4498       </div>
4499     </div>
4500     <div class="padding"></div>
4501
4502     <div class="entry">
4503       <div class="title">
4504         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software</a>
4505       </div>
4506       <div class="date">
4507         11th August 2016
4508       </div>
4509       <div class="body">
4510         <p>This summer, I read a great article
4511 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
4512 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
4513 how to profile multi-threaded programs.  It presented a system for
4514 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
4515 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up" parts of
4516 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run.  It does this by
4517 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up" code is running
4518 and measure how this affect processing time.  The processing time is
4519 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
4520 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END).  It
4521 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
4522 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
4523
4524 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
4525 get the system into Debian.  I
4526 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=830708">created
4527 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
4528 system ready for Debian by sending patches.  The build process need to
4529 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
4530 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
4531 profiling information included in the source package.
4532 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
4533
4534 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple.  To run an coz experiment
4535 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
4536
4537 <p><blockquote><pre>
4538 coz run --- program-to-run
4539 </pre></blockquote></p>
4540
4541 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
4542 information.  To show what part of the code affect the performance
4543 most, use a web browser and either point it to
4544 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
4545 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch).  Check out this web
4546 site to have a look at several example profiling runs and get an idea what the end result from the profile runs look like.  To make the
4547 profiling more useful you include &lt;coz.h&gt; and insert the
4548 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
4549 code, rebuild and run the profiler.  This allow coz to do more
4550 targeted experiments.</p>
4551
4552 <p>A video published by ACM
4553 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg">presenting the
4554 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube.  There is also a paper
4555 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
4556 titled
4557 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger">Coz:
4558 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
4559
4560 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz">The source code</a>
4561 for Coz is available from github.  It will only build with clang
4562 because it uses a
4563 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55606">C++
4564 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
4565 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/67">a patch to solve
4566 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
4567
4568 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
4569 of software in Debian.  I would very much like some help with the
4570 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
4571 C++ libraries.</p>
4572
4573       </div>
4574       <div class="tags">
4575
4576
4577         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
4578
4579
4580       </div>
4581     </div>
4582     <div class="padding"></div>
4583
4584     <div class="entry">
4585       <div class="title">
4586         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html">Unlocking HTC Desire HD on Linux using unruu and fastboot</a>
4587       </div>
4588       <div class="date">
4589          7th July 2016
4590       </div>
4591       <div class="body">
4592         <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
4593 to be a slight challenge.  Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
4594 again.  It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
4595 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy">an
4596 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
4597 device I had access to.  It is a old mobile phone with a broken
4598 microphone The initial idea had been to just
4599 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace">install
4600 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
4601 until a few days ago.</p>
4602
4603 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
4604 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
4605 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
4606 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
4607 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
4608 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/">HTC developer web
4609 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
4610
4611 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
4612 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027.  This
4613 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
4614 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
4615 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not.  So I had to
4616 come up with a different approach.  I got a lot of help from AndyCap
4617 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
4618 him.</p>
4619
4620 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
4621 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00.0029.exe">the
4622 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
4623 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/">a github
4624 project named unruu</a> using libunshield.  The unshield tool did not
4625 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
4626 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
4627 devices it would work for.</p>
4628
4629 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device.  For this I
4630 followed some instructions
4631 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/2013/09/new-ruu-zips-posted/">available
4632 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
4633 machine with Debian testing:</p>
4634
4635 <p><pre>
4636 adb reboot-bootloader
4637 fastboot oem rebootRUU
4638 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
4639 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
4640 fastboot reboot
4641 </pre></p>
4642
4643 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
4644 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
4645 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
4646 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
4647 too.</p>
4648
4649 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
4650 instructions on the HTC developer web site.  I got the device token
4651 like this:</p>
4652
4653 <p><pre>
4654 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
4655 </pre>
4656
4657 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
4658 this:</p>
4659
4660 <p><pre>
4661 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
4662 </pre></p>
4663
4664 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
4665 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
4666 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
4667 before I start.  We will see what happen next.  Perhaps I should
4668 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
4669
4670       </div>
4671       <div class="tags">
4672
4673
4674         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
4675
4676
4677       </div>
4678     </div>
4679     <div class="padding"></div>
4680
4681     <div class="entry">
4682       <div class="title">
4683         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)</a>
4684       </div>
4685       <div class="date">
4686          3rd July 2016
4687       </div>
4688       <div class="body">
4689         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
4690 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/">the Signal app</a>, as it is
4691 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
4692 friends and family are already using it.  As I by choice do not own a
4693 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected.  And I wanted to
4694 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
4695 machine.  But yesterday I managed to get it working.  I used the
4696 Github source, compared it to the source in
4697 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US">the
4698 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
4699 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
4700 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form.  Here is
4701 the recipe how I did it.</p>
4702
4703 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
4704
4705 <pre>
4706 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
4707 </pre>
4708
4709 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
4710 able to talk to other Signal users:</p>
4711
4712 <pre>
4713 cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p0
4714 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js
4715 --- ./js/background.js  2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
4716 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js    2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
4717 @@ -47,8 +47,8 @@
4718          });
4719      });
4720
4721 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
4722 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
4723 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:4433';
4724 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
4725      var messageReceiver;
4726      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
4727          if (messageReceiver) {
4728 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
4729 --- ./js/expire.js      2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
4730 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
4731 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
4732  ;(function() {
4733      'use strict';
4734 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
4735 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 1474492690000;
4736
4737      window.extension = window.extension || {};
4738
4739 EOF
4740 </pre>
4741
4742 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
4743 an expiration timestamp.  This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
4744 It is set 90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
4745 The value is seconds since 1970 times 1000, as far as I can tell.</p>
4746
4747 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
4748 script to launch Signal in Chromium.</p>
4749
4750 <pre>
4751 #!/bin/sh
4752 cd $(dirname $0)
4753 mkdir -p userdata
4754 exec chromium \
4755   --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
4756   --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
4757 </pre>
4758
4759 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
4760 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
4761 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
4762 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
4763 connections if they use source IP address.</p>
4764
4765 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
4766 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
4767 repository.  I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
4768 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
4769 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
4770 registration form.  Then I entered by land line phone number and
4771 pressed 'Call'.  5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
4772 repeated the verification code three times.  After entering the number
4773 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
4774 Signal from my laptop.
4775
4776 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
4777 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
4778 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
4779 setup.  It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
4780 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
4781 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
4782 So better than many options, but not great.  And sadly the usage is
4783 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
4784 to associate it to my home and person.  I would prefer it if only
4785 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal.  There are options
4786 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
4787 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.</p>
4788
4789 <p><strong>Update 2017-01-10</strong>: There is an updated blog post
4790 on this topic in
4791 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience
4792 and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile
4793 phone</a>.</p>
4794
4795       </div>
4796       <div class="tags">
4797
4798
4799         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
4800
4801
4802       </div>
4803     </div>
4804     <div class="padding"></div>
4805
4806     <div class="entry">
4807       <div class="title">
4808         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?</a>
4809       </div>
4810       <div class="date">
4811          6th June 2016
4812       </div>
4813       <div class="body">
4814         <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
4815 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
4816 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
4817 MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
4818 the various players claimed support for.  The range was from 55 to 130
4819 MIME types.  I suspect most media formats are supported by all
4820 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
4821 their desktop files.  There are probably also some bogus MIME types
4822 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p>
4823
4824 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
4825 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
4826 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
4827 favorite media player VLC.  The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
4828 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
4829 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
4830 player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p>
4831
4832 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?  It is VLC, followed by
4833 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
4834 kmplayer.  I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
4835 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
4836 toten and parole.</p>
4837
4838 <p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as
4839 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
4840 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
4841 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
4842 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
4843 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo.  Personally I find
4844 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
4845 players in Debian.  As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
4846 formats.</p>
4847
4848       </div>
4849       <div class="tags">
4850
4851
4852         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
4853
4854
4855       </div>
4856     </div>
4857     <div class="padding"></div>
4858
4859     <div class="entry">
4860       <div class="title">
4861         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html">A program should be able to open its own files on Linux</a>
4862       </div>
4863       <div class="date">
4864          5th June 2016
4865       </div>
4866       <div class="body">
4867         <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
4868 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
4869 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine.  I
4870 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
4871 the day before I would give the talk.  The next day I took a plane to
4872 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
4873 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
4874 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file.  I cursed a bit and
4875 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
4876 present when I arrived.  I tested that the saved files could be
4877 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued.  I continued to polish the
4878 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
4879 be loaded into kpresenter.  In the end I had to rewrite the slides
4880 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
4881 shorter.  After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem &ndash;
4882 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
4883 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
4884 program to make slides.  The point I'm trying to make is that we
4885 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
4886 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.</p>
4887
4888 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
4889 files from the desktop file browser?  It is not a uncommon problem.  A
4890 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
4891 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
4892 browser would refuse to open.  No video player claimed to understand
4893 such file.  I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt>
4894 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
4895 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand.  I asked for
4896 <a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
4897 behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead.  I also asked
4898 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
4899 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files.  After a
4900 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
4901 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.</p>
4902
4903 <p>But history repeats itself.  A few days ago I tested the music
4904 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
4905 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
4906 (*.rg).  I've reported <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
4907 rosegarden problem to BTS</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
4908 included in the next upload.  To increase the chance of me remembering
4909 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
4910 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p>
4911
4912 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
4913 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file.  The output from
4914 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
4915 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/).  The file MIME
4916 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
4917 information is collected from
4918 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
4919 desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/.  If there is
4920 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
4921 activated when asking to open a given file.  If there are more, one
4922 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
4923 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar.  In general
4924 this work well.  But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
4925 type (preferably
4926 <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
4927 MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
4928 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
4929 type in its list of supported MIME types.</p>
4930
4931 <p>The <tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml</tt> entry for
4932 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
4933 Shared MIME database</a> look like this:</p>
4934
4935 <p><blockquote><pre>
4936 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
4937 &lt;mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"&gt;
4938   &lt;mime-type type="audio/x-rosegarden"&gt;
4939     &lt;sub-class-of type="application/x-gzip"/&gt;
4940     &lt;comment&gt;Rosegarden project file&lt;/comment&gt;
4941     &lt;glob pattern="*.rg"/&gt;
4942   &lt;/mime-type&gt;
4943 &lt;/mime-info&gt;
4944 </pre></blockquote></p>
4945
4946 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
4947 (it is a gzipped XML file).  Note, it is much better to use an
4948 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
4949 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.</p>
4950
4951 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
4952 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
4953 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:</p>
4954
4955 <p><blockquote><pre>
4956 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
4957 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
4958 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
4959 %
4960 </pre></blockquote></p>
4961
4962 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
4963 MimeType= line.</p>
4964
4965 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
4966 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
4967 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
4968 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
4969 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
4970 support for this MIME type.  If not, please report a bug to have it
4971 fixed. :)</p>
4972
4973       </div>
4974       <div class="tags">
4975
4976
4977         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4978
4979
4980       </div>
4981     </div>
4982     <div class="padding"></div>
4983
4984     <div class="entry">
4985       <div class="title">
4986         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_with_PackageKit_support___new_version_0_23_available_in_Debian_unstable.html">Isenkram with PackageKit support - new version 0.23 available in Debian unstable</a>
4987       </div>
4988       <div class="date">
4989         25th May 2016
4990       </div>
4991       <div class="body">
4992         <p><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
4993 system</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
4994 related packages.  The idea is to have a database of mappings between
4995 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
4996 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle.  Some use cases
4997 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
4998 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
4999 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
5000 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
5001 install the driver for it.  The system work well, and even have a few
5002 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
5003 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).</p>
5004
5005 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
5006 good documentation and example code on how to use it.  But aptdaemon
5007 is going away and is generally being replaced by
5008 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit</a>,
5009 so Isenkram needed a rewrite.  And today, thanks to the great patch
5010 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
5011 rewrite finally took place.  I've just uploaded a new version of
5012 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
5013 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit.  To check it out,
5014 install the <tt>isenkram</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
5015 and see if it is recognised.</p>
5016
5017 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
5018 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
5019 program.  This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:</p>
5020
5021 <p><blockquote><pre>
5022 % isenkram-lookup
5023 bluez
5024 cheese
5025 fprintd
5026 fprintd-demo
5027 gkrellm-thinkbat
5028 hdapsd
5029 libpam-fprintd
5030 pidgin-blinklight
5031 thinkfan
5032 tleds
5033 tp-smapi-dkms
5034 tp-smapi-source
5035 tpb
5036 %p
5037 </pre></blockquote></p>
5038
5039 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places.  The preferred way
5040 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
5041 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
5042 cross distribution appstream system</a>.
5043 See
5044 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
5045 blog posts about isenkram</a> to learn how to do that.</p>
5046
5047       </div>
5048       <div class="tags">
5049
5050
5051         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
5052
5053
5054       </div>
5055     </div>
5056     <div class="padding"></div>
5057
5058     <div class="entry">
5059       <div class="title">
5060         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html">Discharge rate estimate in new battery statistics collector for Debian</a>
5061       </div>
5062       <div class="date">
5063         23rd May 2016
5064       </div>
5065       <div class="body">
5066         <p>Yesterday I updated the
5067 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
5068 package in Debian</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
5069 enterprising users.  There were some nice user and visible changes.
5070 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work.  A design flaw in
5071 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
5072 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
5073 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
5074 called from the desktop menu.  I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
5075 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
5076 graph window pop up as expected.</p>
5077
5078 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
5079 graphs (the one showing the last few hours).  New is also the user of
5080 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red.  The percentages
5081 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
5082 capacity.</p>
5083
5084 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
5085
5086 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
5087 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
5088 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time.  The red
5089 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers 100 percent:
5090
5091 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
5092
5093 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to 80
5094 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
5095 shrinking. :(</p>
5096
5097 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
5098 more hardware models.  On some hardware, Linux power supply
5099 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
5100 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/.  Now
5101 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
5102 machine.</p>
5103
5104 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
5105 check out the
5106 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
5107 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
5108 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from <a
5109 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
5110 Patches are very welcome.</p>
5111
5112 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5113 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5114 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5115
5116       </div>
5117       <div class="tags">
5118
5119
5120         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5121
5122
5123       </div>
5124     </div>
5125     <div class="padding"></div>
5126
5127     <div class="entry">
5128       <div class="title">
5129         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included</a>
5130       </div>
5131       <div class="date">
5132         12th May 2016
5133       </div>
5134       <div class="body">
5135         <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
5136 <a href="http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux</a> finally entered
5137 Debian.  The package status can be seen on
5138 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
5139 for zfs-linux</a>.  and
5140 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
5141 team status page</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
5142 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
5143 source code</a> is available via git on Alioth.  It would also be
5144 great if you could help out with
5145 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package</a>, as
5146 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.</p>
5147
5148       </div>
5149       <div class="tags">
5150
5151
5152         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5153
5154
5155       </div>
5156     </div>
5157     <div class="padding"></div>
5158
5159     <div class="entry">
5160       <div class="title">
5161         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">What is the best multimedia player in Debian?</a>
5162       </div>
5163       <div class="date">
5164          8th May 2016
5165       </div>
5166       <div class="body">
5167         <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
5168 Debian claim support for most file formats.</strong></p>
5169
5170 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
5171 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
5172 Edu.  I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
5173 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
5174 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
5175 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
5176 result</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
5177 not been updated for a while.  But browser plugins are less relevant
5178 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
5179 players.</p>
5180
5181 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
5182 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
5183 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why.  The cause is a
5184 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
5185 desktop file</a>.  In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
5186 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
5187 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
5188 two for VLC.  This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
5189 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
5190 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
5191 support most file formats.</p>
5192
5193 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
5194 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
5195 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
5196 in the table</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
5197 listed first in the table.</p>
5198
5199 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian?  It is totem, followed by
5200 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
5201 kmplayer.  Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
5202 support?</p>
5203
5204       </div>
5205       <div class="tags">
5206
5207
5208         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
5209
5210
5211       </div>
5212     </div>
5213     <div class="padding"></div>
5214
5215     <div class="entry">
5216       <div class="title">
5217         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled</a>
5218       </div>
5219       <div class="date">
5220          4th May 2016
5221       </div>
5222       <div class="body">
5223         A friend of mine made me aware of
5224 <a href="https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra</a>, a
5225 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled.  I
5226 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)</p>
5227
5228 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
5229 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a 5"
5230 LCD touch screen.  The 6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
5231 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
5232 confirming this.  The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
5233 last I heard last night was that 22 more orders were needed before
5234 production started.</p>
5235
5236 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
5237 Debian.  Please let me know if you know of any others.  Is it the
5238 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?</p>
5239
5240       </div>
5241       <div class="tags">
5242
5243
5244         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5245
5246
5247       </div>
5248     </div>
5249     <div class="padding"></div>
5250
5251     <div class="entry">
5252       <div class="title">
5253         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Lets make a Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
5254       </div>
5255       <div class="date">
5256         10th April 2016
5257       </div>
5258       <div class="body">
5259         <p>During this weekends
5260 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
5261 squashing party and developer gathering</a>, we decided to do our part
5262 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
5263 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
5264 <a href="http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
5265 project</a> to get started.  If you want to help out, please start
5266 contributing using
5267 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
5268 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
5269 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
5270 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
5271 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
5272 contributors</a>.</p>
5273
5274 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
5275 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
5276 Bokmål too.  In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
5277 Mobi versions available.  And there are incomplete translations
5278 available for many more languages.</p>
5279
5280       </div>
5281       <div class="tags">
5282
5283
5284         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5285
5286
5287       </div>
5288     </div>
5289     <div class="padding"></div>
5290
5291     <div class="entry">
5292       <div class="title">
5293         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_in_two_hundred_Debian_users_using_ZFS_on_Linux_.html">One in two hundred Debian users using ZFS on Linux?</a>
5294       </div>
5295       <div class="date">
5296          7th April 2016
5297       </div>
5298       <div class="body">
5299         <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
5300 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found.  I use
5301 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
5302 But I might be wrong.</p>
5303
5304 <p>According to
5305 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
5306 results for spl-linux</a>, there are 1019 Debian installations, or
5307 0.53% of the population, with the package installed.  As far as I know
5308 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
5309 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
5310 installation on Linux in Debian.  In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
5311 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
5312 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
5313 results for zfsutils</a> show 1625 Debian installations or 0.84% of
5314 the population.  So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.</p>
5315
5316 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
5317 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
5318 in April 2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
5319 cleared, the package is still not in Debian.  The package is again in
5320 the NEW queue.  Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
5321 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
5322 to give up.  The current status can be seen on
5323 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
5324 team status page</a>, and
5325 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
5326 source code</a> is available on Alioth.</p>
5327
5328 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
5329 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
5330 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
5331 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
5332 to help out the team.  This was the background for my blog post about
5333 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
5334 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>, and I
5335 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
5336 copyright file.  It is not very easy to check every one of the around
5337 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
5338 right.  If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
5339 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.</p>
5340
5341       </div>
5342       <div class="tags">
5343
5344
5345         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5346
5347
5348       </div>
5349     </div>
5350     <div class="padding"></div>
5351
5352     <div class="entry">
5353       <div class="title">
5354         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Full_battery_stats_collector_is_now_available_in_Debian.html">Full battery stats collector is now available in Debian</a>
5355       </div>
5356       <div class="date">
5357         23rd March 2016
5358       </div>
5359       <div class="body">
5360         <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
5361 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
5362 later processing and graphing.  The original collector store the
5363 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
5364 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
5365 full level, last full level and current battery level.  This make it
5366 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
5367 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.</p>
5368
5369 <p>The new tools are available in <tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/</tt>
5370 in the version 0.5.1 package in unstable.  Get the new battery level graph
5371 and lifetime prediction by running:
5372
5373 <p><pre>
5374 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
5375 </pre></p>
5376
5377 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.</p>
5378
5379 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
5380 entry yet):</p>
5381
5382 <p><pre>
5383 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
5384 </pre></p>
5385
5386 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
5387 when there are few data points.  The graphs look a bit better with a
5388 few years of data.</p>
5389
5390 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
5391 collector broke in Debian.  The scripts in
5392 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/</tt> were no longer executed.  I
5393 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
5394 know.  The issue is reported as
5395 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #818649</a> against
5396 pm-utils.  I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
5397 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
5398 disconnected.  With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
5399 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.</p>
5400
5401 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
5402 check out the
5403 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
5404 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
5405 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
5406 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
5407 As always, patches are very welcome.</p>
5408
5409       </div>
5410       <div class="tags">
5411
5412
5413         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5414
5415
5416       </div>
5417     </div>
5418     <div class="padding"></div>
5419
5420     <div class="entry">
5421       <div class="title">
5422         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html">Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian</a>
5423       </div>
5424       <div class="date">
5425         15th March 2016
5426       </div>
5427       <div class="body">
5428         <p>Back in September, I blogged about
5429 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
5430 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
5431 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced).  I
5432 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
5433 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
5434 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
5435 package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
5436 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
5437 fixed instead.  I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
5438 hoped someone would step in and fix it.  But no-one did.</p>
5439
5440 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
5441 hands.  The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
5442 battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
5443 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
5444 able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
5445 information provided by the Linux kernel.  If you install the
5446 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
5447 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
5448 status of the battery.  The source package build and work just fine in
5449 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
5450 tested).  The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
5451
5452 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-15-battery-stats-graph-example.png" width="70%" align="center"></p>
5453
5454 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
5455 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
5456 about the battery.  The scripts are merged into the upstream
5457 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
5458 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way.  Will have to test a
5459 bit more before I make a new release.</p>
5460
5461 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
5462 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
5463 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
5464 and graphing.</p>
5465
5466 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
5467 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
5468 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
5469 on
5470 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
5471 I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
5472
5473       </div>
5474       <div class="tags">
5475
5476
5477         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5478
5479
5480       </div>
5481     </div>
5482     <div class="padding"></div>
5483
5484     <div class="entry">
5485       <div class="title">
5486         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>
5487       </div>
5488       <div class="date">
5489         19th February 2016
5490       </div>
5491       <div class="body">
5492         <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
5493 details.  And one of the details is the content of the
5494 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
5495 the code in the package in question, preferably in
5496 <a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
5497 readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
5498
5499 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
5500 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
5501 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters.  So getting it right
5502 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
5503 both you and the ftpmasters some work..  Today, while trying to figure
5504 out what was wrong with
5505 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
5506 zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
5507 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
5508 semi-automatically.</p>
5509
5510 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
5511 file based on the code in the source package,
5512 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
5513 and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>.  I'm
5514 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
5515 create a sensible draft file.  As far as I can tell, none of them can
5516 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
5517 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload.  I found the debmake
5518 option in
5519 <a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
5520 blog posts from 2014</a>.
5521
5522 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
5523
5524 <p><pre>
5525 debmake -cc > debian/copyright
5526 </pre></p>
5527
5528 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
5529 this might not be the best option.</p>
5530
5531 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
5532 this approach in
5533 <a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
5534 blog post from 2015</a>.  To generate using cme, use the 'update
5535 dpkg-copyright' option:
5536
5537 <p><pre>
5538 cme update dpkg-copyright
5539 </pre></p>
5540
5541 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright.  The cme tool seem to
5542 handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
5543
5544 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
5545 check if the file is correct.  For this I found two good options,
5546 <tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>.  The former seem
5547 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
5548 ineffective blocks in the copyright file.  The latter reports missing
5549 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
5550 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0).  I suspect it is good to use both and
5551 fix all issues reported by them before uploading.  But I do not know
5552 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
5553 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
5554
5555 <p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning.  It
5556 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
5557 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
5558 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
5559
5560 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
5561 debian/copyright file.  Please let me know, or blog about it on
5562 planet.debian.org.</p>
5563
5564 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5565 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5566 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5567
5568 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
5569 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
5570
5571 <p><pre>
5572 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
5573   /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
5574 </pre></p>
5575
5576 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
5577 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
5578 copyright changes in the upstream source.  I will try to do the same
5579 with my packages in the future.</p>
5580
5581 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
5582 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
5583 command line.</p>
5584
5585       </div>
5586       <div class="tags">
5587
5588
5589         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5590
5591
5592       </div>
5593     </div>
5594     <div class="padding"></div>
5595
5596     <div class="entry">
5597       <div class="title">
5598         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html">Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support</a>
5599       </div>
5600       <div class="date">
5601          4th February 2016
5602       </div>
5603       <div class="body">
5604         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
5605 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
5606 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
5607 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it.  This can
5608 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
5609 about. :)</p>
5610
5611 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
5612 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
5613 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
5614 unstable.  In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
5615 by the kernel during kernel module loading.  To find the package
5616 providing the example file, do like this:</p>
5617
5618 <blockquote><pre>
5619 % apt install appstream
5620 [...]
5621 % apt update
5622 [...]
5623 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
5624   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
5625 firmware-qlogic
5626 %
5627 </pre></blockquote>
5628
5629 <p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
5630 appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
5631 a way appstream can use.</p>
5632
5633 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
5634 given MIME type.  This is very useful when you get a file you do not
5635 know how to handle.  First find the mime type using <tt>file
5636 --mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
5637 it.  Lets say you got an SVG file.  Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
5638 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
5639
5640 <blockquote><pre>
5641 % apt install appstream
5642 [...]
5643 % apt update
5644 [...]
5645 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
5646   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
5647 bkchem
5648 phototonic
5649 inkscape
5650 shutter
5651 tetzle
5652 geeqie
5653 xia
5654 pinta
5655 gthumb
5656 karbon
5657 comix
5658 mirage
5659 viewnior
5660 postr
5661 ristretto
5662 kolourpaint4
5663 eog
5664 eom
5665 gimagereader
5666 midori
5667 %
5668 </pre></blockquote>
5669
5670 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
5671 packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
5672
5673       </div>
5674       <div class="tags">
5675
5676
5677         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5678
5679
5680       </div>
5681     </div>
5682     <div class="padding"></div>
5683
5684     <div class="entry">
5685       <div class="title">
5686         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html">Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software</a>
5687       </div>
5688       <div class="date">
5689         24th January 2016
5690       </div>
5691       <div class="body">
5692         <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
5693 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
5694 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
5695 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent).  And if their
5696 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
5697 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
5698 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
5699 during installation).  And when these programs send out information to
5700 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
5701 extra care is taken to not send the location.  The provided
5702 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
5703 good and bad, depend on your point of view).  What is certain, is that
5704 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
5705 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
5706 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
5707 entities.</p>
5708
5709 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
5710
5711 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
5712 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing.  It is
5713 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
5714 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
5715 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information.  But the
5716 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
5717 tool to do so is called
5718 <a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>.  I
5719 discovered it when I read
5720 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
5721 article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
5722 November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
5723 The python program was in Debian, but
5724 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
5725 Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained.  I
5726 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
5727 have time to fix it then.  This Christmas I decided to finally try to
5728 get Creepy operational in Debian.  Now a fixed version is available in
5729 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
5730 are now included
5731 <a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
5732
5733 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
5734 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
5735 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
5736 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
5737 these services.  Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
5738 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
5739 days it is impossible.  This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
5740 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
5741 information to them about your search interests.  This should be taken
5742 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
5743 about yourself with the services.</p>
5744
5745 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
5746 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
5747 of Norway.  One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
5748 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
5749 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
5750 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
5751 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
5752 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
5753 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
5754 things.  A similar technique have been
5755 <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
5756 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
5757 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
5758 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
5759 public.</p>
5760
5761 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
5762 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
5763 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
5764 python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
5765
5766 <p>(I have uploaded
5767 <a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
5768 screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
5769 Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
5770
5771       </div>
5772       <div class="tags">
5773
5774
5775         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
5776
5777
5778       </div>
5779     </div>
5780     <div class="padding"></div>
5781
5782     <div class="entry">
5783       <div class="title">
5784         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html">Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe</a>
5785       </div>
5786       <div class="date">
5787         15th January 2016
5788       </div>
5789       <div class="body">
5790         <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
5791 <a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
5792 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
5793 believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
5794 security fix from a Debian mirror.  This is a good reason to always
5795 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
5796 listening do not know which IP address to attack.  In August, Richard
5797 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
5798 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
5799 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
5800 <a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
5801 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>.  He
5802 was not the first to propose this, as the
5803 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
5804 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
5805 to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
5806 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
5807
5808 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
5809 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
5810 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
5811 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
5812 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
5813
5814 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
5815 installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
5816 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
5817 of the official Debian mirror site.  I recommend installing
5818 <tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
5819 done in /etc/.</p>
5820
5821 <blockquote><pre>
5822 apt install apt-transport-tor
5823 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
5824 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
5825 </pre></blockquote>
5826
5827 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
5828 the sed commands for these too.  The sed command is assuming your are
5829 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror.  Adjust the command (or just
5830 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
5831
5832 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later.  Note that tools like
5833 <tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
5834 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs.  For
5835 <tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
5836 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable.  So if you
5837 need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
5838
5839 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
5840 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
5841 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
5842 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine.  Using Tor will
5843 become normal for the machine in question.</p>
5844
5845 <p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
5846 is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
5847 enabled.  It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
5848 system.</p>
5849
5850       </div>
5851       <div class="tags">
5852
5853
5854         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
5855
5856
5857       </div>
5858     </div>
5859     <div class="padding"></div>
5860
5861     <div class="entry">
5862       <div class="title">
5863         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html">OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software</a>
5864       </div>
5865       <div class="date">
5866         23rd December 2015
5867       </div>
5868       <div class="body">
5869         <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
5870 call the car license plate numbers in those days.  I would write the
5871 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
5872 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
5873 exotic or special region codes and numbers.  It was a fun game to pass
5874 time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
5875
5876 <p>A few days I came across
5877 <a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
5878 project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
5879 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
5880 "car numbers" in a machine readable format.  I've been looking for
5881 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
5882 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
5883 number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
5884 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
5885 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance.  I
5886 discovered the developer
5887 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
5888 Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
5889 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
5890 archive.</p>
5891
5892 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
5893 it into Debian, where it currently
5894 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
5895 in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
5896
5897 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
5898 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
5899 surveillance system?  Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
5900 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
5901 when number plates on my watch list are discovered.  Another use case
5902 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
5903 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
5904 car.  When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
5905 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
5906 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway.  I
5907 guess for such use case it make sense.  I am sure there are other use
5908 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
5909
5910 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
5911 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
5912 before running "debuild" to build the source.  Or wait a bit until the
5913 package show up in unstable.</p>
5914
5915       </div>
5916       <div class="tags">
5917
5918
5919         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
5920
5921
5922       </div>
5923     </div>
5924     <div class="padding"></div>
5925
5926     <div class="entry">
5927       <div class="title">
5928         <a href="https://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>
5929       </div>
5930       <div class="date">
5931         20th December 2015
5932       </div>
5933       <div class="body">
5934         <p>Around three years ago, I created
5935 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
5936 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
5937 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
5938 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
5939 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
5940 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
5941 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
5942 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
5943 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
5944 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
5945 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
5946 with.</p>
5947
5948 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
5949 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
5950 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
5951 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
5952 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
5953 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
5954 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
5955 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
5956 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
5957 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
5958 Debian version of appstream.</p>
5959
5960 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
5961 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
5962 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
5963 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
5964 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
5965 how do add the required
5966 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
5967 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
5968 this content:</p>
5969
5970 <blockquote><pre>
5971 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
5972 &lt;component&gt;
5973   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
5974   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
5975   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
5976   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
5977   &lt;description&gt;
5978     &lt;p&gt;
5979       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
5980       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
5981       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
5982       launcher.
5983     &lt;/p&gt;
5984   &lt;/description&gt;
5985   &lt;provides&gt;
5986     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
5987   &lt;/provides&gt;
5988 &lt;/component&gt;
5989 </pre></blockquote>
5990
5991 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
5992 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
5993 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
5994 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
5995 0202.</p>
5996
5997 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
5998 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
5999 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
6000 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
6001 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
6002 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
6003 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
6004 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
6005
6006 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
6007 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
6008 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
6009 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
6010 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
6011
6012 <blockquote><pre>
6013 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
6014 </pre></blockquote>
6015
6016 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
6017 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
6018 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
6019 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
6020 question.</p>
6021
6022 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
6023 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
6024
6025 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
6026 try running this command on the command line:</p>
6027
6028 <blockquote><pre>
6029 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
6030 </pre></blockquote>
6031
6032 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
6033 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
6034 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
6035
6036       </div>
6037       <div class="tags">
6038
6039
6040         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
6041
6042
6043       </div>
6044     </div>
6045     <div class="padding"></div>
6046
6047     <div class="entry">
6048       <div class="title">
6049         <a href="https://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>
6050       </div>
6051       <div class="date">
6052         30th November 2015
6053       </div>
6054       <div class="body">
6055         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
6056 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
6057 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
6058 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
6059 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
6060
6061 <blockquote>
6062
6063 <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>
6064
6065 <blockquote>
6066 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
6067
6068 The first step is to choose a
6069 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
6070 code.<br/>
6071
6072 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
6073 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
6074
6075 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
6076 work<br/>
6077
6078 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
6079 </blockquote>
6080
6081 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
6082 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
6083 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
6084 0x57</a></small></p>
6085
6086 <p>As the Debian Website
6087 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
6088 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
6089 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
6090 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
6091 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
6092 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
6093 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
6094 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
6095 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
6096 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
6097 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
6098 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
6099 Freedom">FaiF</a>
6100 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
6101 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
6102 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
6103 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
6104 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
6105 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
6106 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
6107 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
6108 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
6109 In March the SFC supported a
6110 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
6111 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
6112 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
6113 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
6114 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
6115 conferences
6116 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
6117 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
6118 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
6119 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
6120 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
6121 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
6122 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
6123 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
6124 Software.</p>
6125
6126 <p>If you support Free Software,
6127 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
6128 what the SFC do, agree with their
6129 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
6130 principles</a>, are happy about their
6131 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
6132 work on a project that is an SFC
6133 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
6134 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
6135 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
6136 Allan Webber</a>,
6137 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
6138 Smith</a>,
6139 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
6140 Bacon</a>, myself and
6141 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
6142 becoming a
6143 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
6144 next week your donation will be
6145 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
6146 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
6147 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
6148 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
6149 social media accounts.</p>
6150
6151 </blockquote>
6152
6153 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
6154 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
6155 supporter too?</p>
6156
6157       </div>
6158       <div class="tags">
6159
6160
6161         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
6162
6163
6164       </div>
6165     </div>
6166     <div class="padding"></div>
6167
6168     <div class="entry">
6169       <div class="title">
6170         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
6171       </div>
6172       <div class="date">
6173         17th November 2015
6174       </div>
6175       <div class="body">
6176         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
6177 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
6178 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
6179 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
6180 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
6181 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
6182 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
6183 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
6184 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
6185 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
6186
6187 <pre>
6188 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
6189       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
6190 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
6191 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
6192 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
6193 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
6194 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
6195 </pre>
6196
6197 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
6198 my old key.</p>
6199
6200 <p>If you signed my old key
6201 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
6202 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
6203 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
6204 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
6205
6206       </div>
6207       <div class="tags">
6208
6209
6210         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
6211
6212
6213       </div>
6214     </div>
6215     <div class="padding"></div>
6216
6217     <div class="entry">
6218       <div class="title">
6219         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
6220       </div>
6221       <div class="date">
6222         24th September 2015
6223       </div>
6224       <div class="body">
6225         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
6226 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
6227 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
6228 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
6229 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
6230 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
6231 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
6232
6233 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
6234
6235 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
6236 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
6237 by someone else.  I found
6238 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
6239 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
6240 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
6241 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
6242 from him.  Via
6243 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
6244 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
6245 discovered
6246 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
6247 available in Debian.</p>
6248
6249 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
6250 battery stats ever since. Now my
6251 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
6252 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
6253 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
6254 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
6255
6256 <pre>
6257 #!/bin/sh
6258 # Inspired by
6259 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
6260 # See also
6261 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
6262 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
6263
6264 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
6265     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
6266
6267 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
6268     (
6269         printf "timestamp,"
6270         for f in $files; do
6271             printf "%s," $f
6272         done
6273         echo
6274     ) > "$logfile"
6275 fi
6276
6277 log_battery() {
6278     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
6279     # when several log processes run in parallel.
6280     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
6281         for f in $files; do \
6282             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
6283         done)
6284     echo "$msg"
6285 }
6286
6287 cd /sys/class/power_supply
6288
6289 for bat in BAT*; do
6290     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
6291 done
6292 </pre>
6293
6294 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
6295 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
6296 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
6297 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
6298 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
6299 The code for the Debian package
6300 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
6301 available on github</a>.</p>
6302
6303 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
6304
6305 <pre>
6306 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
6307 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
6308 [...]
6309 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
6310 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
6311 </pre>
6312
6313 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
6314 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
6315 battery.</p>
6316
6317 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
6318 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
6319 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
6320 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
6321 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
6322 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
6323 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
6324 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
6325 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
6326 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
6327 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
6328 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
6329 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
6330 Linux too.</p>
6331
6332 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
6333 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
6334 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
6335 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
6336 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
6337 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
6338 load).</p>
6339
6340 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
6341 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
6342 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
6343 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
6344 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
6345 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
6346 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
6347 those.</p>
6348
6349 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
6350 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
6351 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
6352 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
6353 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
6354 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
6355 specific.</p>
6356
6357       </div>
6358       <div class="tags">
6359
6360
6361         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6362
6363
6364       </div>
6365     </div>
6366     <div class="padding"></div>
6367
6368     <div class="entry">
6369       <div class="title">
6370         <a href="https://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>
6371       </div>
6372       <div class="date">
6373          5th July 2015
6374       </div>
6375       <div class="body">
6376         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
6377 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
6378 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
6379 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
6380 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
6381 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
6382 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
6383 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
6384 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
6385 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
6386 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
6387
6388 <p>One tip I got was to use the
6389 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
6390 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
6391 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
6392 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
6393 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
6394 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
6395
6396 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
6397 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
6398 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
6399 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
6400 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
6401 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
6402 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
6403 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
6404 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
6405 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
6406 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
6407 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
6408 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
6409 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
6410 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
6411
6412 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
6413 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
6414 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
6415 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
6416
6417 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
6418 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
6419
6420 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
6421 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
6422 different
6423 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
6424 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
6425
6426       </div>
6427       <div class="tags">
6428
6429
6430         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6431
6432
6433       </div>
6434     </div>
6435     <div class="padding"></div>
6436
6437     <div class="entry">
6438       <div class="title">
6439         <a href="https://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>
6440       </div>
6441       <div class="date">
6442          3rd July 2015
6443       </div>
6444       <div class="body">
6445         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
6446 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
6447 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
6448 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
6449 flickering.</p>
6450
6451 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
6452 still as
6453 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
6454 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
6455 good help from
6456 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
6457 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
6458 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
6459 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
6460 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
6461 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
6462 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
6463 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
6464 deteriorated since X41.</p>
6465
6466 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
6467 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
6468 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
6469 have suggestions.</p>
6470
6471 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
6472 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
6473 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
6474
6475       </div>
6476       <div class="tags">
6477
6478
6479         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6480
6481
6482       </div>
6483     </div>
6484     <div class="padding"></div>
6485
6486     <div class="entry">
6487       <div class="title">
6488         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
6489       </div>
6490       <div class="date">
6491         22nd November 2014
6492       </div>
6493       <div class="body">
6494         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
6495 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
6496 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
6497 courtesy of
6498 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
6499 Schubert</a> and
6500 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
6501 McVittie</a>.
6502
6503 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
6504 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
6505 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
6506 you upgrade:</p>
6507
6508 <p><blockquote><pre>
6509 Package: systemd-sysv
6510 Pin: release o=Debian
6511 Pin-Priority: -1
6512 </pre></blockquote><p>
6513
6514 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
6515 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
6516 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
6517 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
6518 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
6519
6520 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
6521 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
6522 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
6523 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
6524 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
6525 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
6526
6527 <p><blockquote><pre>
6528 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
6529 </pre></blockquote><p>
6530
6531 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
6532
6533 <p><blockquote><pre>
6534 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
6535 </pre></blockquote><p>
6536
6537 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
6538 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
6539
6540 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
6541 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
6542 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
6543 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
6544 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
6545 Jessie is released.</p>
6546
6547 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
6548 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
6549 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
6550 line.</p>
6551
6552       </div>
6553       <div class="tags">
6554
6555
6556         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6557
6558
6559       </div>
6560     </div>
6561     <div class="padding"></div>
6562
6563     <div class="entry">
6564       <div class="title">
6565         <a href="https://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>
6566       </div>
6567       <div class="date">
6568         10th November 2014
6569       </div>
6570       <div class="body">
6571         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
6572 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
6573 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
6574
6575 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
6576 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
6577 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
6578 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
6579 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
6580 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
6581 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
6582 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
6583 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
6584 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
6585 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
6586 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
6587 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
6588 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
6589 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
6590
6591 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
6592 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
6593 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
6594 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
6595 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
6596 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
6597 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
6598 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
6599 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
6600 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
6601 were fairly easy, and
6602 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
6603 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
6604 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
6605 useful approach.</p>
6606
6607 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
6608 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
6609 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
6610 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
6611 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
6612 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
6613 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
6614 this:</p>
6615
6616 <p><blockquote><pre>
6617 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
6618   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
6619 </pre></blockquote></p>
6620
6621 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
6622 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
6623
6624 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
6625 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
6626 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
6627 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
6628 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
6629 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
6630 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
6631 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
6632 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
6633 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
6634 system.</p>
6635
6636 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
6637 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
6638 SMTorP. :)</p>
6639
6640       </div>
6641       <div class="tags">
6642
6643
6644         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
6645
6646
6647       </div>
6648     </div>
6649     <div class="padding"></div>
6650
6651     <div class="entry">
6652       <div class="title">
6653         <a href="https://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>
6654       </div>
6655       <div class="date">
6656         22nd October 2014
6657       </div>
6658       <div class="body">
6659         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
6660 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
6661 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
6662 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
6663 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
6664 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
6665 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
6666 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
6667 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
6668 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
6669 lists I recently took over:</p>
6670
6671 <p><blockquote><pre>
6672 % time listadmin xiph
6673 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
6674 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
6675
6676 real    0m1.709s
6677 user    0m0.232s
6678 sys     0m0.012s
6679 %
6680 </pre></blockquote></p>
6681
6682 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
6683 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
6684 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
6685 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
6686 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
6687 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
6688 program.</p>
6689
6690 <p>If you install
6691 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
6692 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
6693 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
6694
6695 <p><blockquote><pre>
6696 username username@example.org
6697 spamlevel 23
6698 default discard
6699 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
6700
6701 password secret
6702 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
6703 mailman-list@lists.example.com
6704
6705 password hidden
6706 other-list@otherserver.example.org
6707 </pre></blockquote></p>
6708
6709 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
6710 learn the details.</p>
6711
6712 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
6713 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
6714 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
6715 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
6716
6717 <p><blockquote><pre>
6718 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
6719 </pre></blockquote></p>
6720
6721 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
6722 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
6723 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
6724 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
6725 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
6726 email.</p>
6727
6728 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
6729 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
6730 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
6731 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
6732 software.</p>
6733
6734 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6735 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6736 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6737
6738 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
6739 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
6740 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
6741 sure why.</p>
6742
6743       </div>
6744       <div class="tags">
6745
6746
6747         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
6748
6749
6750       </div>
6751     </div>
6752     <div class="padding"></div>
6753
6754     <div class="entry">
6755       <div class="title">
6756         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
6757       </div>
6758       <div class="date">
6759         17th October 2014
6760       </div>
6761       <div class="body">
6762         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
6763 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
6764 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
6765 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
6766 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
6767 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
6768 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
6769
6770 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
6771 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
6772 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
6773 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
6774 of this story.)</p>
6775
6776 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
6777 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
6778 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
6779 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
6780 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
6781 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
6782 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
6783 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
6784 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
6785 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
6786
6787 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
6788 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
6789 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
6790 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
6791
6792 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
6793 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
6794
6795 <p><blockquote><pre>
6796 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
6797 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
6798 </pre></blockquote></p>
6799
6800 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
6801 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
6802 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
6803 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
6804 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
6805 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
6806 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
6807 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
6808
6809 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
6810 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
6811
6812 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
6813 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
6814 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
6815 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
6816 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
6817
6818 <p><blockquote><pre>
6819 Task: isenkram-packages
6820 Section: hardware
6821 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
6822  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
6823  proposed.
6824 Test-new-install: show show
6825 Relevance: 8
6826 Packages: for-current-hardware
6827
6828 Task: isenkram-firmware
6829 Section: hardware
6830 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
6831  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
6832  packages are proposed.
6833 Test-new-install: mark show
6834 Relevance: 8
6835 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
6836 </pre></blockquote></p>
6837
6838 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
6839 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
6840 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
6841 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
6842 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
6843
6844 <p><blockquote><pre>
6845 #!/bin/sh
6846 #
6847 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
6848 export PATH
6849 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
6850 </pre></blockquote></p>
6851
6852 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
6853 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
6854
6855 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
6856 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
6857 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
6858 install.</p>
6859
6860 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
6861 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
6862 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
6863
6864       </div>
6865       <div class="tags">
6866
6867
6868         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
6869
6870
6871       </div>
6872     </div>
6873     <div class="padding"></div>
6874
6875     <div class="entry">
6876       <div class="title">
6877         <a href="https://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>
6878       </div>
6879       <div class="date">
6880          4th October 2014
6881       </div>
6882       <div class="body">
6883         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
6884 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
6885 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
6886 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
6887
6888 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
6889
6890 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
6891 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
6892 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
6893
6894       </div>
6895       <div class="tags">
6896
6897
6898         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6899
6900
6901       </div>
6902     </div>
6903     <div class="padding"></div>
6904
6905     <div class="entry">
6906       <div class="title">
6907         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
6908       </div>
6909       <div class="date">
6910          4th October 2014
6911       </div>
6912       <div class="body">
6913         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
6914 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
6915 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
6916 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
6917 Dibb.</p>
6918
6919 <p>I just wrapped up
6920 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
6921 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
6922 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
6923 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
6924 0.17.</p>
6925
6926 <ul>
6927
6928  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
6929  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
6930    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
6931  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
6932  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
6933  <li>Fix include orders</li>
6934  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
6935  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
6936  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
6937    the palette size is the same.</li>
6938  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
6939  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
6940  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
6941  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
6942    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
6943
6944 </ul>
6945
6946 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
6947 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
6948 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
6949
6950       </div>
6951       <div class="tags">
6952
6953
6954         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
6955
6956
6957       </div>
6958     </div>
6959     <div class="padding"></div>
6960
6961     <div class="entry">
6962       <div class="title">
6963         <a href="https://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>
6964       </div>
6965       <div class="date">
6966         26th September 2014
6967       </div>
6968       <div class="body">
6969         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6970 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
6971 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
6972 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
6973 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
6974 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
6975 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
6976 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
6977 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
6978 future.  The
6979 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
6980 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
6981 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
6982 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
6983 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
6984
6985 <p>First, download the test ISO via
6986 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
6987 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
6988 or rsync (use
6989 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
6990 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
6991 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
6992 install with some tweaking.</p>
6993
6994 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
6995 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
6996
6997 <p><blockquote><pre>
6998 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
6999 </pre></blockquote></p>
7000
7001 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
7002 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
7003 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
7004 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
7005
7006 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
7007 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
7008 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
7009 your need.</p>
7010
7011 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
7012 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
7013 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
7014 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
7015 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
7016 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
7017 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
7018 days.</p>
7019
7020 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
7021 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
7022 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
7023 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
7024 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
7025 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
7026 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
7027 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
7028 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
7029
7030 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
7031 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
7032 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
7033
7034       </div>
7035       <div class="tags">
7036
7037
7038         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7039
7040
7041       </div>
7042     </div>
7043     <div class="padding"></div>
7044
7045     <div class="entry">
7046       <div class="title">
7047         <a href="https://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>
7048       </div>
7049       <div class="date">
7050         25th September 2014
7051       </div>
7052       <div class="body">
7053         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
7054 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
7055 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
7056 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
7057 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
7058 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
7059 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
7060 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
7061 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
7062 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
7063 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
7064 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
7065 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
7066
7067 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
7068 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
7069 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
7070 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
7071 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
7072 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
7073 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
7074 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
7075 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
7076 list</a>. :)</p>
7077
7078       </div>
7079       <div class="tags">
7080
7081
7082         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
7083
7084
7085       </div>
7086     </div>
7087     <div class="padding"></div>
7088
7089     <div class="entry">
7090       <div class="title">
7091         <a href="https://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>
7092       </div>
7093       <div class="date">
7094         16th September 2014
7095       </div>
7096       <div class="body">
7097         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
7098 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
7099 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
7100 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
7101 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
7102 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
7103 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
7104 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
7105 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
7106 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
7107 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
7108 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
7109 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
7110 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
7111
7112 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
7113 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
7114 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
7115 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
7116 depend on the small and clever package
7117 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
7118 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
7119 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
7120 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
7121 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
7122 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
7123 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
7124 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
7125 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
7126 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
7127 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
7128
7129 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
7130 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
7131 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
7132 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
7133 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
7134 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
7135 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
7136 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
7137 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
7138 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
7139 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
7140 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
7141 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
7142 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
7143 dialog.</p>
7144
7145 <p><table>
7146
7147 <tr>
7148 <th>Machine/setup</th>
7149 <th>Original tasksel</th>
7150 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
7151 <th>Reduction</th>
7152 </tr>
7153
7154 <tr>
7155 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
7156 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
7157 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
7158 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
7159 </tr>
7160
7161 <tr>
7162 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
7163 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
7164 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
7165 <td>23 min 40%</td>
7166 </tr>
7167
7168 <tr>
7169 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
7170 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
7171 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
7172 <td>11 min 50%</td>
7173 </tr>
7174
7175 <tr>
7176 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
7177 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
7178 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
7179 <td>2 min 33%</td>
7180 </tr>
7181
7182 <tr>
7183 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
7184 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
7185 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
7186 <td>4 min 21%</td>
7187 </tr>
7188
7189 </table></p>
7190
7191 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
7192 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
7193 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
7194 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
7195 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
7196 installed.</p>
7197
7198 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
7199 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
7200 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
7201 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
7202 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
7203 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
7204 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
7205 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
7206 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
7207 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
7208 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
7209 for the entire installation.</p>
7210
7211 <p>I've implemented this in the
7212 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
7213 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
7214 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
7215 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
7216 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
7217
7218 <p><blockquote><pre>
7219 #!/bin/sh
7220 set -e
7221 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
7222 info() {
7223     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
7224 }
7225 error() {
7226     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
7227 }
7228 override_install() {
7229     apt-install eatmydata || true
7230     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
7231         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
7232             file=/usr/bin/$bin
7233             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
7234             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
7235                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
7236                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
7237                     > /target$file.edu
7238                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
7239                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
7240                     --rename --quiet --add $file
7241                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
7242             else
7243                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
7244             fi
7245         done
7246     else
7247         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
7248     fi
7249 }
7250
7251 override_install
7252 </pre></blockquote></p>
7253
7254 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
7255 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
7256
7257 <p><blockquote><pre>
7258 #! /bin/sh -e
7259 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
7260 error() {
7261     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
7262 }
7263 remove_install_override() {
7264     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
7265         file=/usr/bin/$bin
7266         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
7267             rm /target$file
7268             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
7269                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
7270             rm /target$file.edu
7271         else
7272             error "Missing divert for $file."
7273         fi
7274     done
7275     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
7276 }
7277
7278 remove_install_override
7279 </pre></blockquote></p>
7280
7281 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
7282 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
7283 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
7284
7285 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
7286 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
7287 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
7288 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
7289 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
7290 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
7291 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
7292 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
7293 everyone.</p>
7294
7295 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
7296 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
7297 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
7298 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
7299
7300 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
7301 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
7302 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
7303 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
7304 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
7305
7306 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
7307 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
7308 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
7309 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
7310 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
7311
7312       </div>
7313       <div class="tags">
7314
7315
7316         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7317
7318
7319       </div>
7320     </div>
7321     <div class="padding"></div>
7322
7323     <div class="entry">
7324       <div class="title">
7325         <a href="https://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>
7326       </div>
7327       <div class="date">
7328         10th September 2014
7329       </div>
7330       <div class="body">
7331         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
7332 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
7333 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
7334 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
7335 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
7336 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
7337 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
7338 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
7339 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
7340 those problems are gone now.</p>
7341
7342 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
7343 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
7344 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
7345 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
7346 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
7347
7348 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
7349 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
7350 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
7351
7352 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
7353 line:</p>
7354
7355 <p><blockquote><pre>
7356 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
7357 </pre></blockquote></p>
7358
7359 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
7360 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
7361 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
7362 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
7363
7364 <p><blockquote><pre>
7365 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
7366 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
7367 %
7368 </pre></blockquote></p>
7369
7370 <p>Now if only
7371 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
7372 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
7373 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
7374 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
7375 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
7376 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
7377 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
7378 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
7379 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
7380
7381       </div>
7382       <div class="tags">
7383
7384
7385         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
7386
7387
7388       </div>
7389     </div>
7390     <div class="padding"></div>
7391
7392     <div class="entry">
7393       <div class="title">
7394         <a href="https://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>
7395       </div>
7396       <div class="date">
7397         17th June 2014
7398       </div>
7399       <div class="body">
7400         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7401 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
7402 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
7403 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
7404 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
7405
7406 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
7407 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
7408 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
7409 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
7410 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
7411 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
7412 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
7413 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
7414 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
7415 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
7416 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
7417 goals.</p>
7418
7419 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
7420 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
7421 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
7422 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
7423 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
7424 chapters together into one large web page (aka
7425 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
7426 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
7427 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
7428 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
7429 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
7430 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
7431 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
7432 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
7433 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
7434 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
7435 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
7436 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
7437 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
7438 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
7439 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
7440 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
7441 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
7442 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
7443
7444 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
7445 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
7446 track the English original.  For this we use the
7447 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
7448 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
7449 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
7450 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
7451 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
7452 files), which the translations update with the native language
7453 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
7454 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
7455 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
7456 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
7457 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
7458 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
7459 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
7460 of the documentation.</p>
7461
7462 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
7463 recommend using
7464 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
7465 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
7466 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
7467 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
7468 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
7469 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
7470 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
7471 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
7472
7473 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
7474 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
7475 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
7476 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
7477 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
7478 translated images by storing translated versions in
7479 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
7480 package maintainers know more.</p>
7481
7482 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
7483 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
7484 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
7485 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
7486 PDF version</a> or the
7487 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
7488 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
7489 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
7490
7491 <p>To learn more, check out
7492 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
7493 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
7494 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
7495 manual on the wiki</a> and
7496 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
7497 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
7498
7499       </div>
7500       <div class="tags">
7501
7502
7503         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7504
7505
7506       </div>
7507     </div>
7508     <div class="padding"></div>
7509
7510     <div class="entry">
7511       <div class="title">
7512         <a href="https://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>
7513       </div>
7514       <div class="date">
7515         23rd April 2014
7516       </div>
7517       <div class="body">
7518         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
7519 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
7520 So I implemented one, using
7521 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
7522 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
7523 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
7524 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
7525 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
7526 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
7527
7528 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
7529 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
7530 packages to install.  The first part is in
7531 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
7532 this:</p>
7533
7534 <p><blockquote><pre>
7535 Task: isenkram
7536 Section: hardware
7537 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
7538  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
7539  proposed.
7540 Test-new-install: mark show
7541 Relevance: 8
7542 Packages: for-current-hardware
7543 </pre></blockquote></p>
7544
7545 <p>The second part is in
7546 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
7547 this:</p>
7548
7549 <p><blockquote><pre>
7550 #!/bin/sh
7551 #
7552 (
7553     isenkram-lookup
7554     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
7555 ) | sort -u
7556 </pre></blockquote></p>
7557
7558 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
7559 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
7560 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
7561 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
7562 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
7563 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
7564
7565 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
7566 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
7567 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
7568 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
7569 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
7570 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
7571 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
7572 the python-apt code (bug
7573 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
7574 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
7575 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
7576 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
7577 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
7578 unstable today.</p>
7579
7580 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
7581 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
7582 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
7583 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
7584 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
7585 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
7586 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
7587 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
7588 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
7589
7590 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
7591 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
7592 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
7593 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
7594 package.  See also
7595 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
7596 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
7597 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
7598 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
7599
7600       </div>
7601       <div class="tags">
7602
7603
7604         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
7605
7606
7607       </div>
7608     </div>
7609     <div class="padding"></div>
7610
7611     <div class="entry">
7612       <div class="title">
7613         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
7614       </div>
7615       <div class="date">
7616         15th April 2014
7617       </div>
7618       <div class="body">
7619         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
7620 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
7621 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
7622 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
7623 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
7624 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
7625
7626 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
7627 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
7628 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
7629 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
7630 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
7631 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
7632 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
7633
7634 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
7635 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
7636 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
7637 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
7638 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
7639 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
7640 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
7641 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
7642 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
7643 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
7644 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
7645 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
7646
7647 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
7648 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
7649 become root:</p>
7650
7651 <p><pre>
7652 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
7653   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
7654   u-boot-tools
7655 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
7656   freedom-maker
7657 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
7658 </pre></p>
7659
7660 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
7661 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
7662 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
7663 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
7664 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
7665 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
7666 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
7667 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
7668
7669 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
7670 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
7671 the preseed values:</p>
7672
7673 <p><pre>
7674 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
7675 </pre></p>
7676
7677 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
7678 it still work.</p>
7679
7680 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
7681 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
7682 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
7683 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
7684 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
7685 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
7686 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
7687
7688 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
7689 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
7690 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
7691 irc.debian.org)</a> and
7692 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
7693 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
7694
7695       </div>
7696       <div class="tags">
7697
7698
7699         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
7700
7701
7702       </div>
7703     </div>
7704     <div class="padding"></div>
7705
7706     <div class="entry">
7707       <div class="title">
7708         <a href="https://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>
7709       </div>
7710       <div class="date">
7711          9th April 2014
7712       </div>
7713       <div class="body">
7714         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
7715 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
7716 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
7717 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
7718 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
7719 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
7720 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
7721 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
7722 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
7723 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
7724 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
7725 have looked at a system called
7726 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
7727 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
7728
7729 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
7730 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
7731 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
7732 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
7733 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
7734 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
7735 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
7736 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
7737 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
7738 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
7739 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
7740 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
7741 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
7742
7743 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
7744 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
7745 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
7746 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
7747 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
7748 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
7749 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
7750 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
7751 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
7752 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
7753 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
7754 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
7755 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
7756 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
7757 account.</p>
7758
7759 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
7760 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
7761 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
7762 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
7763 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
7764 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
7765 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
7766
7767 <p><blockquote><pre>
7768 [s3c]
7769 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
7770 backend-login: API-login
7771 backend-password: API-password
7772 fs-passphrase: local-password
7773 </pre></blockquote></p>
7774
7775 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
7776 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
7777 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
7778 details and password to create it:</p>
7779
7780 <p><blockquote><pre>
7781 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
7782 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
7783   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
7784 Enter backend login:
7785 Enter backend password:
7786 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
7787 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
7788 Enter encryption password:
7789 Confirm encryption password:
7790 Generating random encryption key...
7791 Creating metadata tables...
7792 Dumping metadata...
7793 ..objects..
7794 ..blocks..
7795 ..inodes..
7796 ..inode_blocks..
7797 ..symlink_targets..
7798 ..names..
7799 ..contents..
7800 ..ext_attributes..
7801 Compressing and uploading metadata...
7802 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
7803 # </pre></blockquote></p>
7804
7805 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
7806
7807 <p><blockquote><pre>
7808 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
7809   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
7810 Using 4 upload threads.
7811 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
7812 Reading metadata...
7813 ..objects..
7814 ..blocks..
7815 ..inodes..
7816 ..inode_blocks..
7817 ..symlink_targets..
7818 ..names..
7819 ..contents..
7820 ..ext_attributes..
7821 Mounting filesystem...
7822 # df -h /s3ql
7823 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
7824 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
7825 #
7826 </pre></blockquote></p>
7827
7828 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
7829 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
7830 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
7831 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
7832 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
7833 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
7834
7835 <p><blockquote><pre>
7836 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
7837 #
7838 </pre></blockquote></p>
7839
7840 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
7841 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
7842 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
7843 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
7844 file system:</p>
7845
7846 <p><blockquote><pre>
7847 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
7848 Using cached metadata.
7849 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
7850 Checking DB integrity...
7851 Creating temporary extra indices...
7852 Checking lost+found...
7853 Checking cached objects...
7854 Checking names (refcounts)...
7855 Checking contents (names)...
7856 Checking contents (inodes)...
7857 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
7858 Checking objects (reference counts)...
7859 Checking objects (backend)...
7860 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
7861 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
7862 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
7863 Checking objects (sizes)...
7864 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
7865 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
7866 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
7867 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
7868 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
7869 Checking inodes (sizes)...
7870 Checking extended attributes (names)...
7871 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
7872 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
7873 Checking directory reachability...
7874 Checking unix conventions...
7875 Checking referential integrity...
7876 Dropping temporary indices...
7877 Backing up old metadata...
7878 Dumping metadata...
7879 ..objects..
7880 ..blocks..
7881 ..inodes..
7882 ..inode_blocks..
7883 ..symlink_targets..
7884 ..names..
7885 ..contents..
7886 ..ext_attributes..
7887 Compressing and uploading metadata...
7888 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
7889 #
7890 </pre></blockquote></p>
7891
7892 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
7893 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
7894 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
7895 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
7896 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
7897 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
7898 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
7899 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
7900 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
7901 working set.</p>
7902
7903 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
7904 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
7905 busy:</p>
7906
7907 <p><blockquote><pre>
7908 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
7909   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
7910 Using 8 upload threads.
7911 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
7912 #
7913 </pre></blockquote></p>
7914
7915 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
7916 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
7917 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
7918 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
7919 s3qlctrl:
7920
7921 <p><blockquote><pre>
7922 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
7923 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
7924 #
7925 </pre></blockquote></p>
7926
7927 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
7928 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
7929 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
7930 a report:</p>
7931
7932 <p><blockquote><pre>
7933 # s3qlstat /s3ql
7934 Directory entries:    9141
7935 Inodes:               9143
7936 Data blocks:          8851
7937 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
7938 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
7939 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
7940 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
7941 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
7942 #
7943 </pre></blockquote></p>
7944
7945 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
7946 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
7947 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
7948 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
7949 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
7950 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
7951 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
7952 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
7953 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
7954 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
7955 best.</p>
7956
7957 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
7958 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
7959 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
7960 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
7961 poster is titled
7962 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
7963 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
7964 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
7965 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
7966 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
7967
7968 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
7969 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
7970 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
7971 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
7972 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
7973 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
7974 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
7975 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
7976
7977 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
7978 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
7979 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
7980 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
7981 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
7982 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
7983 only read from it.</p>
7984
7985 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
7986 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
7987 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
7988
7989       </div>
7990       <div class="tags">
7991
7992
7993         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
7994
7995
7996       </div>
7997     </div>
7998     <div class="padding"></div>
7999
8000     <div class="entry">
8001       <div class="title">
8002         <a href="https://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>
8003       </div>
8004       <div class="date">
8005         14th March 2014
8006       </div>
8007       <div class="body">
8008         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
8009 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
8010 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
8011 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
8012 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
8013 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
8014 release (0.2).</p>
8015
8016 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
8017 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
8018 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
8019 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
8020 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
8021 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
8022 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
8023 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
8024 and build using
8025 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
8026 with a user with sudo access to become root:
8027
8028 <pre>
8029 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
8030   freedom-maker
8031 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
8032   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
8033   u-boot-tools
8034 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
8035 </pre>
8036
8037 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
8038 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
8039 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
8040 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
8041 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
8042 kpartx call.</p>
8043
8044 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
8045 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
8046 the preseed values:</p>
8047
8048 <pre>
8049 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
8050 </pre>
8051
8052 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
8053 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
8054 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
8055 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
8056 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
8057 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
8058
8059 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
8060 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
8061 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
8062 irc.debian.org)</a> and
8063 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
8064 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
8065
8066       </div>
8067       <div class="tags">
8068
8069
8070         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
8071
8072
8073       </div>
8074     </div>
8075     <div class="padding"></div>
8076
8077     <div class="entry">
8078       <div class="title">
8079         <a href="https://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>
8080       </div>
8081       <div class="date">
8082         22nd February 2014
8083       </div>
8084       <div class="body">
8085         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
8086 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
8087 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
8088 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
8089 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
8090 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
8091 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
8092 proper home since then.</p>
8093
8094 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
8095 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
8096 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
8097 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
8098 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
8099
8100 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
8101 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
8102 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
8103 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
8104 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
8105 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
8106 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
8107 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
8108 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
8109
8110       </div>
8111       <div class="tags">
8112
8113
8114         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8115
8116
8117       </div>
8118     </div>
8119     <div class="padding"></div>
8120
8121     <div class="entry">
8122       <div class="title">
8123         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
8124       </div>
8125       <div class="date">
8126          3rd February 2014
8127       </div>
8128       <div class="body">
8129         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
8130 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
8131 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
8132 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
8133 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
8134 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
8135 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
8136 <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>,
8137 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
8138
8139 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
8140 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
8141 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
8142 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
8143 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
8144 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
8145
8146 <p><blockquote><pre>
8147 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
8148 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
8149 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
8150 dhclient /dev/eth0
8151 </pre></blockquote></p>
8152
8153 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
8154 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
8155 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
8156
8157 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
8158 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
8159 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
8160 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
8161 side.</p>
8162
8163 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
8164 stuff:</p>
8165
8166 <p><blockquote><pre>
8167 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
8168 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
8169 EOF
8170 apt-get update
8171 apt-get dist-upgrade
8172 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
8173     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
8174 update-alternatives --config runsystem
8175 </pre></blockquote></p>
8176
8177 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
8178 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
8179 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
8180 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
8181 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
8182 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
8183 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
8184 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
8185 ssh instead.
8186
8187 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
8188 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
8189 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
8190 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
8191 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
8192 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
8193
8194 <p><blockquote><pre>
8195 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
8196 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
8197 EOF
8198 </pre></blockquote></p>
8199
8200 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
8201 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
8202 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
8203 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
8204
8205 <p><blockquote><pre>
8206 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
8207 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
8208 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
8209 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
8210 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
8211 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
8212 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
8213 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
8214 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
8215 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
8216 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
8217 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
8218 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
8219 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
8220 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
8221 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
8222 #
8223 </pre></blockquote></p>
8224
8225 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
8226 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
8227 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
8228 command line stuff.<p>
8229
8230       </div>
8231       <div class="tags">
8232
8233
8234         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8235
8236
8237       </div>
8238     </div>
8239     <div class="padding"></div>
8240
8241     <div class="entry">
8242       <div class="title">
8243         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
8244       </div>
8245       <div class="date">
8246         14th January 2014
8247       </div>
8248       <div class="body">
8249         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
8250 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
8251 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
8252 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
8253 the source.  The company behind it provide
8254 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
8255 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
8256 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
8257 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
8258 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
8259 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
8260 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
8261 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
8262 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
8263 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
8264 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
8265 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
8266 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
8267 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
8268 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
8269 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
8270 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
8271 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
8272 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
8273
8274 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
8275
8276 <ul>
8277
8278   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
8279   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
8280   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
8281
8282 </ul>
8283
8284 <p>You can
8285 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
8286 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
8287 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
8288 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
8289 include a test suite check.</p>
8290
8291       </div>
8292       <div class="tags">
8293
8294
8295         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8296
8297
8298       </div>
8299     </div>
8300     <div class="padding"></div>
8301
8302     <div class="entry">
8303       <div class="title">
8304         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
8305       </div>
8306       <div class="date">
8307         24th November 2013
8308       </div>
8309       <div class="body">
8310         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
8311 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
8312 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
8313 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
8314 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
8315 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
8316 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
8317 is working on.  I checked the
8318 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
8319 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
8320 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
8321 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
8322 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
8323 These are the release notes:</p>
8324
8325 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
8326
8327 <ul>
8328
8329   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
8330    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
8331    up.</li>
8332
8333   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
8334
8335   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
8336    Matthias Klose.</li>
8337
8338   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
8339    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
8340
8341   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
8342    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
8343    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
8344
8345 </ul>
8346
8347 <p>You can
8348 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
8349 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
8350 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
8351 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
8352 include a testsuite check.</p>
8353
8354       </div>
8355       <div class="tags">
8356
8357
8358         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8359
8360
8361       </div>
8362     </div>
8363     <div class="padding"></div>
8364
8365     <div class="entry">
8366       <div class="title">
8367         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
8368       </div>
8369       <div class="date">
8370          2nd November 2013
8371       </div>
8372       <div class="body">
8373         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
8374 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
8375 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
8376 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
8377 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
8378
8379 <p><pre>
8380 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
8381 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
8382 # Provides:          rsyslog
8383 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
8384 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
8385 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
8386 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
8387 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
8388 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
8389 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
8390 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
8391 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
8392 ### END INIT INFO
8393 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
8394 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
8395 </pre></p>
8396
8397 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
8398 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
8399 info/comments.</p>
8400
8401 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
8402 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
8403
8404 <p><pre>
8405 #!/bin/sh
8406
8407 # Define LSB log_* functions.
8408 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
8409 # and status_of_proc is working.
8410 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
8411
8412 #
8413 # Function that starts the daemon/service
8414
8415 #
8416 do_start()
8417 {
8418         # Return
8419         #   0 if daemon has been started
8420         #   1 if daemon was already running
8421         #   2 if daemon could not be started
8422         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
8423                 || return 1
8424         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
8425                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
8426                 || return 2
8427         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
8428         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
8429         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
8430 }
8431
8432 #
8433 # Function that stops the daemon/service
8434 #
8435 do_stop()
8436 {
8437         # Return
8438         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
8439         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
8440         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
8441         #   other if a failure occurred
8442         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
8443         RETVAL="$?"
8444         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
8445         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
8446         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
8447         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
8448         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
8449         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
8450         # sleep for some time.
8451         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
8452         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
8453         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
8454         rm -f $PIDFILE
8455         return "$RETVAL"
8456 }
8457
8458 #
8459 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
8460 #
8461 do_reload() {
8462         #
8463         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
8464         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
8465         # then implement that here.
8466         #
8467         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
8468         return 0
8469 }
8470
8471 SCRIPTNAME=$1
8472 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
8473 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
8474 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
8475     script="$1"
8476     shift
8477     . $script
8478 else
8479     exit 0
8480 fi
8481
8482 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
8483 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
8484
8485 # Exit if the package is not installed
8486 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
8487
8488 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
8489 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
8490
8491 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
8492 . /lib/init/vars.sh
8493
8494 case "$1" in
8495   start)
8496         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
8497         do_start
8498         case "$?" in
8499                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
8500                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
8501         esac
8502         ;;
8503   stop)
8504         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
8505         do_stop
8506         case "$?" in
8507                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
8508                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
8509         esac
8510         ;;
8511   status)
8512         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
8513         ;;
8514   #reload|force-reload)
8515         #
8516         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
8517         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
8518         #
8519         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
8520         #do_reload
8521         #log_end_msg $?
8522         #;;
8523   restart|force-reload)
8524         #
8525         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
8526         # 'force-reload' alias
8527         #
8528         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
8529         do_stop
8530         case "$?" in
8531           0|1)
8532                 do_start
8533                 case "$?" in
8534                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
8535                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
8536                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
8537                 esac
8538                 ;;
8539           *)
8540                 # Failed to stop
8541                 log_end_msg 1
8542                 ;;
8543         esac
8544         ;;
8545   *)
8546         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
8547         exit 3
8548         ;;
8549 esac
8550
8551 :
8552 </pre></p>
8553
8554 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
8555 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
8556 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
8557 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
8558
8559 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
8560 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
8561 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
8562 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
8563 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
8564
8565       </div>
8566       <div class="tags">
8567
8568
8569         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8570
8571
8572       </div>
8573     </div>
8574     <div class="padding"></div>
8575
8576     <div class="entry">
8577       <div class="title">
8578         <a href="https://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>
8579       </div>
8580       <div class="date">
8581          1st November 2013
8582       </div>
8583       <div class="body">
8584         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
8585 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
8586 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
8587 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
8588 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
8589 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
8590 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
8591 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
8592 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
8593 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
8594 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
8595 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
8596
8597 <p>The source is now available from
8598 <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>
8599
8600       </div>
8601       <div class="tags">
8602
8603
8604         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8605
8606
8607       </div>
8608     </div>
8609     <div class="padding"></div>
8610
8611     <div class="entry">
8612       <div class="title">
8613         <a href="https://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>
8614       </div>
8615       <div class="date">
8616         27th October 2013
8617       </div>
8618       <div class="body">
8619         <p>The
8620 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
8621 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
8622 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
8623 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
8624 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
8625 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
8626 of a plan to simplify the build system for
8627 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
8628 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
8629 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
8630 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
8631 Raspberry Pi.</p>
8632
8633 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
8634 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
8635 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
8636 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
8637 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
8638 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
8639 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
8640 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
8641 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
8642 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
8643 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
8644 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
8645 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
8646 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
8647 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
8648 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
8649 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
8650 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
8651 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
8652 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
8653 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
8654 available from
8655 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
8656 upstream project page</a>.</p>
8657
8658 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
8659 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
8660 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
8661 list:</p>
8662
8663 <p><pre>
8664 #!/bin/sh
8665 set -e # Exit on first error
8666 rootdir="$1"
8667 cd "$rootdir"
8668 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
8669 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
8670 EOF
8671 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
8672 # install a kernel somewhere too.
8673 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
8674     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
8675 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
8676 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
8677 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
8678 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
8679 </pre></p>
8680
8681 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
8682 to build the image:</p>
8683
8684 <pre>
8685 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
8686     --variant minbase \
8687     --arch armel \
8688     --distribution jessie \
8689     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
8690     --image test.img \
8691     --size 600M \
8692     --bootsize 64M \
8693     --boottype vfat \
8694     --log-level debug \
8695     --verbose \
8696     --no-kernel \
8697     --no-extlinux \
8698     --root-password raspberry \
8699     --hostname raspberrypi \
8700     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
8701     --customize `pwd`/customize \
8702     --package netbase \
8703     --package git-core \
8704     --package binutils \
8705     --package ca-certificates \
8706     --package wget \
8707     --package kmod
8708 </pre></p>
8709
8710 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
8711 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
8712 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
8713 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
8714 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
8715 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
8716 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
8717
8718 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
8719 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
8720 build dependency list.</p>
8721
8722 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
8723 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
8724 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
8725 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
8726
8727       </div>
8728       <div class="tags">
8729
8730
8731         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
8732
8733
8734       </div>
8735     </div>
8736     <div class="padding"></div>
8737
8738     <div class="entry">
8739       <div class="title">
8740         <a href="https://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>
8741       </div>
8742       <div class="date">
8743         15th October 2013
8744       </div>
8745       <div class="body">
8746         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
8747 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
8748 these. :)</p>
8749
8750 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
8751 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
8752 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
8753 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
8754 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
8755 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
8756 hope you will to. :)</p>
8757
8758 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
8759 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
8760 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
8761 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
8762 donated.  Are you next?</p>
8763
8764 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
8765 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
8766 statement under the heading
8767 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
8768 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
8769 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
8770 too.</p>
8771
8772       </div>
8773       <div class="tags">
8774
8775
8776         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
8777
8778
8779       </div>
8780     </div>
8781     <div class="padding"></div>
8782
8783     <div class="entry">
8784       <div class="title">
8785         <a href="https://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>
8786       </div>
8787       <div class="date">
8788         27th September 2013
8789       </div>
8790       <div class="body">
8791         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
8792 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
8793 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
8794 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
8795
8796 <ul>
8797
8798 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
8799 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
8800
8801 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
8802 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
8803
8804 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
8805 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
8806 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
8807 (Youtube)</li>
8808
8809 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
8810 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
8811
8812 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
8813 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
8814
8815 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
8816 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
8817 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
8818
8819 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
8820 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
8821 (Youtube)</li>
8822
8823 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
8824 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
8825
8826 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
8827 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
8828
8829 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
8830 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
8831 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
8832
8833 </ul>
8834
8835 <p>A larger list is available from
8836 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
8837 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
8838
8839 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
8840 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
8841 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
8842 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
8843 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
8844 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
8845 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
8846 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
8847 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
8848 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
8849 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
8850
8851       </div>
8852       <div class="tags">
8853
8854
8855         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
8856
8857
8858       </div>
8859     </div>
8860     <div class="padding"></div>
8861
8862     <div class="entry">
8863       <div class="title">
8864         <a href="https://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>
8865       </div>
8866       <div class="date">
8867         10th September 2013
8868       </div>
8869       <div class="body">
8870         <p>I was introduced to the
8871 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
8872 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
8873 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
8874 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
8875 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
8876 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
8877 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
8878 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
8879
8880 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
8881 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
8882 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
8883 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
8884 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
8885
8886 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
8887 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
8888 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
8889 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
8890 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
8891 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
8892 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
8893 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
8894 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
8895 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
8896 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
8897 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
8898 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
8899 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
8900 missing in Debian).</p>
8901
8902 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
8903 scripts
8904 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
8905 and a administrative web interface
8906 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
8907 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
8908 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
8909 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
8910 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
8911 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
8912 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
8913 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
8914 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
8915 this is really working yet, see
8916 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
8917 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
8918 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
8919 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
8920 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
8921 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
8922 with lots of half baked features.</p>
8923
8924 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
8925 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
8926 at.</p>
8927
8928 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
8929
8930 <ol>
8931
8932 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
8933 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
8934 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
8935 to the Debian installer:<p>
8936 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
8937
8938 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
8939 install on.</li>
8940
8941 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
8942 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
8943
8944 </ol>
8945
8946 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
8947
8948 <ol>
8949
8950 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
8951 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
8952 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
8953 <pre>
8954 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
8955 </pre></li>
8956 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
8957 <pre>
8958 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
8959    apt-key add -
8960 apt-get update
8961 apt-get install freedombox-setup
8962 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
8963 </pre></li>
8964 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
8965
8966 </ol>
8967
8968 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
8969 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
8970 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
8971 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
8972 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
8973
8974 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
8975 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
8976 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
8977 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
8978
8979 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
8980 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
8981 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
8982 irc.debian.org and the
8983 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
8984 mailing list</a>.</p>
8985
8986 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
8987 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
8988 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
8989 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
8990 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
8991 default password is 'secret'.</p>
8992
8993       </div>
8994       <div class="tags">
8995
8996
8997         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
8998
8999
9000       </div>
9001     </div>
9002     <div class="padding"></div>
9003
9004     <div class="entry">
9005       <div class="title">
9006         <a href="https://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>
9007       </div>
9008       <div class="date">
9009         18th August 2013
9010       </div>
9011       <div class="body">
9012         <p>Earlier, I reported about
9013 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
9014 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
9015 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
9016 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
9017 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
9018 currently on the disk.</p>
9019
9020 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
9021 <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>
9022 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
9023 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
9024 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
9025 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
9026 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
9027 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
9028 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
9029 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
9030 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
9031 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
9032 the broken disks.</p>
9033
9034       </div>
9035       <div class="tags">
9036
9037
9038         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9039
9040
9041       </div>
9042     </div>
9043     <div class="padding"></div>
9044
9045     <div class="entry">
9046       <div class="title">
9047         <a href="https://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>
9048       </div>
9049       <div class="date">
9050         17th July 2013
9051       </div>
9052       <div class="body">
9053         <p>Today I switched to
9054 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
9055 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
9056 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
9057 <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
9058 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
9059 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
9060 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
9061 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
9062 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
9063 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
9064 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
9065 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
9066 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
9067 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
9068 station from now on.</p>
9069
9070 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
9071 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
9072 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
9073 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
9074 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
9075 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
9076 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
9077 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
9078 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
9079 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
9080 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
9081 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
9082
9083 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
9084 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
9085 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
9086 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
9087 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
9088 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
9089 parameters are tuned:</p>
9090
9091 <ul>
9092
9093 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
9094     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
9095
9096 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
9097     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
9098     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
9099
9100 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
9101     systems.</li>
9102
9103 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
9104     /etc/fstab.</li>
9105
9106 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
9107
9108 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
9109     cron.daily).</li>
9110
9111 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
9112     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
9113
9114 </ul>
9115
9116 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
9117 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
9118 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
9119 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
9120 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
9121 from getting the data on the disk (see
9122 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
9123 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
9124 right thing to do.</p>
9125
9126 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
9127 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
9128 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
9129
9130 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
9131 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
9132 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
9133 instead of during my work.</p>
9134
9135 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
9136 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
9137
9138 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
9139 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
9140 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
9141
9142 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
9143 there.</p>
9144
9145 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
9146 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
9147 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
9148 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
9149 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
9150 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
9151 back.</p>
9152
9153       </div>
9154       <div class="tags">
9155
9156
9157         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9158
9159
9160       </div>
9161     </div>
9162     <div class="padding"></div>
9163
9164     <div class="entry">
9165       <div class="title">
9166         <a href="https://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>
9167       </div>
9168       <div class="date">
9169         10th July 2013
9170       </div>
9171       <div class="body">
9172         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
9173 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
9174 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
9175 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
9176 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
9177 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
9178 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
9179 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
9180
9181 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
9182 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
9183 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
9184 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
9185 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
9186 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
9187 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
9188 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
9189 lock up when I download a new
9190 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
9191 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
9192 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
9193
9194 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
9195 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
9196 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
9197 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
9198 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
9199 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
9200
9201 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
9202 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
9203 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
9204 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
9205 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
9206 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
9207
9208 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
9209 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
9210 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
9211 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
9212 exist).</p>
9213
9214       </div>
9215       <div class="tags">
9216
9217
9218         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9219
9220
9221       </div>
9222     </div>
9223     <div class="padding"></div>
9224
9225     <div class="entry">
9226       <div class="title">
9227         <a href="https://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>
9228       </div>
9229       <div class="date">
9230          9th July 2013
9231       </div>
9232       <div class="body">
9233         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
9234 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
9235 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
9236 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
9237 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
9238 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
9239 Bitraf</a>.</p>
9240
9241 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
9242 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
9243 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
9244 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
9245 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
9246
9247       </div>
9248       <div class="tags">
9249
9250
9251         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9252
9253
9254       </div>
9255     </div>
9256     <div class="padding"></div>
9257
9258     <div class="entry">
9259       <div class="title">
9260         <a href="https://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>
9261       </div>
9262       <div class="date">
9263          5th July 2013
9264       </div>
9265       <div class="body">
9266         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
9267 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
9268 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
9269 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
9270 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
9271 ended up picking a
9272 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
9273 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
9274 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
9275 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
9276 on that below.</p>
9277
9278 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
9279 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
9280 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
9281 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
9282 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
9283 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
9284 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
9285 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
9286 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
9287
9288 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
9289 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
9290 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
9291 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
9292 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
9293 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
9294 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
9295
9296 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
9297 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
9298
9299 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
9300 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
9301 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
9302 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
9303 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
9304 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
9305 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
9306 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
9307 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
9308 kernel developers as
9309 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
9310 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
9311 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
9312 Lenovo forums, both for
9313 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
9314 2012-11-10</a> and for
9315 <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
9316 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
9317 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
9318 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
9319 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
9320 There is even a
9321 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
9322 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
9323 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
9324
9325 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
9326 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
9327 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
9328 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
9329 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
9330 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
9331 fixed. :)</p>
9332
9333       </div>
9334       <div class="tags">
9335
9336
9337         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9338
9339
9340       </div>
9341     </div>
9342     <div class="padding"></div>
9343
9344     <div class="entry">
9345       <div class="title">
9346         <a href="https://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>
9347       </div>
9348       <div class="date">
9349          4th July 2013
9350       </div>
9351       <div class="body">
9352         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
9353 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
9354 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
9355 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
9356 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
9357 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
9358 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
9359 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
9360 with an expencive door stop.</p>
9361
9362 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
9363 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
9364 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
9365 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
9366 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
9367 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
9368 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
9369
9370 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
9371 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
9372 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
9373 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
9374 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
9375 new laptop now. :)</p>
9376
9377 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
9378
9379       </div>
9380       <div class="tags">
9381
9382
9383         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9384
9385
9386       </div>
9387     </div>
9388     <div class="padding"></div>
9389
9390     <div class="entry">
9391       <div class="title">
9392         <a href="https://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>
9393       </div>
9394       <div class="date">
9395         25th June 2013
9396       </div>
9397       <div class="body">
9398         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
9399 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
9400 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
9401 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
9402 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
9403 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
9404 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
9405 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
9406 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
9407 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
9408 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
9409
9410 <p><pre>
9411 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
9412 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
9413 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
9414 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
9415 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
9416 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
9417 firmware-ipw2x00
9418 firmware-ipw2x00
9419 Preconfiguring packages ...
9420 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
9421 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
9422 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
9423 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
9424 #
9425 </pre></p>
9426
9427 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
9428 printed instead:</p>
9429
9430 <p><pre>
9431 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
9432 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
9433 #
9434 </pre></p>
9435
9436 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
9437 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
9438
9439 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
9440 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
9441 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
9442 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
9443 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
9444 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
9445 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
9446 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
9447 machine.</p>
9448
9449 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
9450 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
9451 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
9452 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
9453 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
9454 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
9455
9456       </div>
9457       <div class="tags">
9458
9459
9460         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
9461
9462
9463       </div>
9464     </div>
9465     <div class="padding"></div>
9466
9467     <div class="entry">
9468       <div class="title">
9469         <a href="https://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>
9470       </div>
9471       <div class="date">
9472         11th June 2013
9473       </div>
9474       <div class="body">
9475         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
9476 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
9477 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
9478 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
9479 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
9480 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
9481 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
9482 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
9483 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
9484 i915 driver used by the
9485 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
9486 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
9487
9488 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
9489 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
9490 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
9491 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
9492 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
9493
9494 <pre>
9495 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
9496 update-initramfs -u -k all
9497 </pre>
9498
9499 <p>Since March 2012 there is
9500 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
9501 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
9502 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
9503 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
9504 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
9505 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
9506 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
9507 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
9508 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
9509 number.</p>
9510
9511 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
9512 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
9513
9514 <p><pre>
9515 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
9516     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
9517     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
9518  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
9519  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
9520     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
9521  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
9522     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
9523  Latency: 0
9524  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
9525  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
9526  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
9527  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
9528  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
9529  Capabilities: <access denied>
9530  Kernel driver in use: i915
9531 </pre></p>
9532
9533 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
9534
9535 <p><pre>
9536 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
9537        ...
9538         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
9539         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
9540        ...
9541 }
9542 </pre></p>
9543
9544 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
9545 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
9546 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
9547 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
9548 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
9549 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
9550 yet shown up in
9551 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
9552 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
9553 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
9554 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
9555 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
9556 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
9557
9558 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
9559 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
9560 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
9561 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
9562 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
9563 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
9564 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
9565 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
9566 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
9567 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
9568 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
9569 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
9570
9571 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
9572 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
9573 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
9574 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
9575 backlight.</p>
9576
9577       </div>
9578       <div class="tags">
9579
9580
9581         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9582
9583
9584       </div>
9585     </div>
9586     <div class="padding"></div>
9587
9588     <div class="entry">
9589       <div class="title">
9590         <a href="https://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>
9591       </div>
9592       <div class="date">
9593         27th May 2013
9594       </div>
9595       <div class="body">
9596         <p>Two days ago, I asked
9597 <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
9598 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
9599 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
9600 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
9601 and Windows 8.</p>
9602
9603 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
9604 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
9605 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
9606 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
9607 enough to tell.</p>
9608
9609 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
9610 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
9611 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
9612 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
9613 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
9614 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
9615 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
9616 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
9617 to follow.</p>
9618
9619 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
9620 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
9621 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
9622 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
9623 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
9624 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
9625 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
9626 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
9627
9628 <p>I've updated the
9629 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
9630 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
9631 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
9632 machine.</p>
9633
9634 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
9635 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
9636
9637       </div>
9638       <div class="tags">
9639
9640
9641         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9642
9643
9644       </div>
9645     </div>
9646     <div class="padding"></div>
9647
9648     <div class="entry">
9649       <div class="title">
9650         <a href="https://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>
9651       </div>
9652       <div class="date">
9653         25th May 2013
9654       </div>
9655       <div class="body">
9656         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
9657 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
9658 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
9659 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
9660 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
9661 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
9662
9663 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
9664 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
9665 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
9666 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
9667 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
9668 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
9669 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
9670 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
9671 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
9672 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
9673
9674 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
9675 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
9676 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
9677 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
9678 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
9679 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
9680
9681 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
9682 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
9683 on new Laptops?</p>
9684
9685       </div>
9686       <div class="tags">
9687
9688
9689         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9690
9691
9692       </div>
9693     </div>
9694     <div class="padding"></div>
9695
9696     <div class="entry">
9697       <div class="title">
9698         <a href="https://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>
9699       </div>
9700       <div class="date">
9701         17th May 2013
9702       </div>
9703       <div class="body">
9704         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
9705 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
9706 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
9707 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
9708 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
9709 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
9710 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
9711 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
9712 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
9713 donate some money</a>.
9714
9715 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
9716 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
9717 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
9718 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
9719 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
9720
9721 <p>The script,
9722 <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/>
9723 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
9724 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
9725 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
9726
9727 <ol>
9728
9729 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
9730 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
9731 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
9732     our configuration.</li>
9733 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
9734     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
9735     according to the profile specified in the config above,
9736     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
9737 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
9738     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
9739 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
9740
9741 </ol>
9742
9743 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
9744 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
9745 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
9746 the needed packages.</p>
9747
9748 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
9749 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
9750 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
9751 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
9752 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
9753 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
9754
9755 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
9756 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
9757 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
9758
9759 <p><pre>
9760 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
9761 DESKTOP="lxde"
9762 </pre></p>
9763
9764 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
9765 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
9766 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
9767 boot.</p>
9768
9769       </div>
9770       <div class="tags">
9771
9772
9773         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9774
9775
9776       </div>
9777     </div>
9778     <div class="padding"></div>
9779
9780     <div class="entry">
9781       <div class="title">
9782         <a href="https://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>
9783       </div>
9784       <div class="date">
9785         11th May 2013
9786       </div>
9787       <div class="body">
9788         <P>In January,
9789 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
9790 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
9791 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
9792 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
9793 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
9794 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
9795 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
9796 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
9797 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
9798 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
9799 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
9800 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
9801
9802 <p><table>
9803 <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>
9804 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
9805 <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>
9806 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
9807 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
9808 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
9809 <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>
9810 <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>
9811 <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>
9812 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
9813 </table></p>
9814
9815 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
9816 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
9817 available in experimental.</p>
9818
9819 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
9820 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
9821 for LEGO designers.</p>
9822
9823       </div>
9824       <div class="tags">
9825
9826
9827         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
9828
9829
9830       </div>
9831     </div>
9832     <div class="padding"></div>
9833
9834     <div class="entry">
9835       <div class="title">
9836         <a href="https://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>
9837       </div>
9838       <div class="date">
9839          5th May 2013
9840       </div>
9841       <div class="body">
9842         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
9843 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
9844 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
9845 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
9846 soon.</p>
9847
9848 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
9849 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
9850 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
9851 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
9852 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
9853 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
9854 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
9855 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
9856 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
9857 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
9858 Edu.</a>
9859
9860 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
9861 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
9862 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
9863 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
9864 follow.<p>
9865
9866       </div>
9867       <div class="tags">
9868
9869
9870         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9871
9872
9873       </div>
9874     </div>
9875     <div class="padding"></div>
9876
9877     <div class="entry">
9878       <div class="title">
9879         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
9880       </div>
9881       <div class="date">
9882          3rd April 2013
9883       </div>
9884       <div class="body">
9885         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
9886 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
9887 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
9888 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
9889
9890 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
9891 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
9892 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
9893 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
9894 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
9895 BTS. :)</p>
9896
9897       </div>
9898       <div class="tags">
9899
9900
9901         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
9902
9903
9904       </div>
9905     </div>
9906     <div class="padding"></div>
9907
9908     <div class="entry">
9909       <div class="title">
9910         <a href="https://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>
9911       </div>
9912       <div class="date">
9913          2nd February 2013
9914       </div>
9915       <div class="body">
9916         <p>My
9917 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
9918 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
9919 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
9920 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
9921 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
9922 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
9923 version too.</p>
9924
9925 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
9926 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
9927 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
9928 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
9929 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
9930 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
9931 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
9932 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
9933
9934 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
9935 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
9936 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
9937 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
9938 it. :)</p>
9939
9940 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
9941 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
9942 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
9943
9944       </div>
9945       <div class="tags">
9946
9947
9948         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9949
9950
9951       </div>
9952     </div>
9953     <div class="padding"></div>
9954
9955     <div class="entry">
9956       <div class="title">
9957         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
9958       </div>
9959       <div class="date">
9960         22nd January 2013
9961       </div>
9962       <div class="body">
9963         <p>Yesterday, I
9964 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
9965 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
9966 pluggable hardware devices, which I
9967 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
9968 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
9969 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
9970 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
9971 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
9972 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
9973 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
9974 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
9975 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
9976 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
9977
9978 <pre>
9979 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
9980 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
9981 </pre>
9982
9983 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
9984 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
9985 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
9986 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
9987
9988 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
9989 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
9990 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
9991 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
9992 word.</p>
9993
9994 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
9995 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
9996 process.</p>
9997
9998 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
9999 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
10000
10001       </div>
10002       <div class="tags">
10003
10004
10005         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10006
10007
10008       </div>
10009     </div>
10010     <div class="padding"></div>
10011
10012     <div class="entry">
10013       <div class="title">
10014         <a href="https://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>
10015       </div>
10016       <div class="date">
10017         21st January 2013
10018       </div>
10019       <div class="body">
10020         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
10021 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
10022 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
10023 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
10024 it, fetch the
10025 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
10026 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
10027 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
10028 autostart script.</p>
10029
10030 <p>The design is simple:</p>
10031
10032 <ul>
10033
10034 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
10035 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
10036
10037 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
10038 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
10039 initially did.</li>
10040
10041 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
10042 the APT database, a database
10043 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
10044 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
10045
10046 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
10047 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
10048 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
10049 package or packages.</li>
10050
10051 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
10052 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
10053
10054 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
10055 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
10056
10057 </ul>
10058
10059 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
10060 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
10061 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
10062 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
10063
10064 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
10065 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
10066 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
10067 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
10068 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
10069
10070 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
10071 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
10072 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
10073 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
10074 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
10075 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
10076 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
10077 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
10078
10079 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
10080 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
10081 '<tt>svn checkout
10082 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
10083 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
10084 devscripts package.</p>
10085
10086 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
10087 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
10088 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
10089 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
10090 instructions</a> for details.</p>
10091
10092       </div>
10093       <div class="tags">
10094
10095
10096         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10097
10098
10099       </div>
10100     </div>
10101     <div class="padding"></div>
10102
10103     <div class="entry">
10104       <div class="title">
10105         <a href="https://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>
10106       </div>
10107       <div class="date">
10108         19th January 2013
10109       </div>
10110       <div class="body">
10111         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
10112 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
10113 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
10114 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
10115 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
10116 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
10117 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
10118 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
10119 not a durable solution.
10120
10121 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
10122 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
10123
10124 <ul>
10125
10126 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
10127   than A4).</li>
10128 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
10129 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
10130 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
10131 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
10132 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
10133 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
10134 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
10135 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
10136 size).</li>
10137 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
10138   X.org packages.</li>
10139 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
10140   the time).
10141
10142 </ul>
10143
10144 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
10145 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
10146 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
10147 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
10148 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
10149 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
10150 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
10151 still be useful.</p>
10152
10153 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
10154 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
10155 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
10156 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
10157 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
10158 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
10159
10160       </div>
10161       <div class="tags">
10162
10163
10164         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10165
10166
10167       </div>
10168     </div>
10169     <div class="padding"></div>
10170
10171     <div class="entry">
10172       <div class="title">
10173         <a href="https://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>
10174       </div>
10175       <div class="date">
10176         18th January 2013
10177       </div>
10178       <div class="body">
10179         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
10180 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
10181 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
10182 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
10183 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
10184 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
10185 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
10186
10187 <pre>
10188 #!/usr/bin/python
10189 import sys
10190 import apt
10191 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
10192     cache = apt.Cache()
10193     cache.open(None)
10194     thepkgs = []
10195     for pkg in cache:
10196         version = pkg.candidate
10197         if version is None:
10198             version = pkg.installed
10199         if version is None:
10200             continue
10201         record = version.record
10202         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
10203             continue
10204         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
10205         for t in mime_types:
10206             t = t.rstrip().strip()
10207             if t == mimetype:
10208                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
10209     return thepkgs
10210 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
10211 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
10212     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
10213 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
10214 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
10215     print "  %s" %pkg
10216 </pre>
10217
10218 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
10219
10220 <pre>
10221 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
10222 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
10223   gecko-mediaplayer
10224 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
10225 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
10226   browser-plugin-gnash
10227 %
10228 </pre>
10229
10230 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
10231 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
10232 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
10233 anyone working on adding it?</p>
10234
10235 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
10236 request for icweasel support for this feature is
10237 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
10238 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
10239 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
10240 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
10241
10242       </div>
10243       <div class="tags">
10244
10245
10246         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10247
10248
10249       </div>
10250     </div>
10251     <div class="padding"></div>
10252
10253     <div class="entry">
10254       <div class="title">
10255         <a href="https://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>
10256       </div>
10257       <div class="date">
10258         16th January 2013
10259       </div>
10260       <div class="body">
10261         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
10262 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
10263 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
10264 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
10265 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
10266 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
10267 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
10268 downloaded by the browser.</p>
10269
10270 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
10271 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
10272 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
10273 can be found on the
10274 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
10275 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
10276 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
10277 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
10278 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
10279
10280 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
10281
10282 <pre>
10283   count MIME type
10284   ----- -----------------------
10285      32 text/plain
10286      30 audio/mpeg
10287      29 image/png
10288      28 image/jpeg
10289      27 application/ogg
10290      26 audio/x-mp3
10291      25 image/tiff
10292      25 image/gif
10293      22 image/bmp
10294      22 audio/x-wav
10295      20 audio/x-flac
10296      19 audio/x-mpegurl
10297      18 video/x-ms-asf
10298      18 audio/x-musepack
10299      18 audio/x-mpeg
10300      18 application/x-ogg
10301      17 video/mpeg
10302      17 audio/x-scpls
10303      17 audio/ogg
10304      16 video/x-ms-wmv
10305 </pre>
10306
10307 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
10308
10309 <pre>
10310   count MIME type
10311   ----- -----------------------
10312      33 text/plain
10313      32 image/png
10314      32 image/jpeg
10315      29 audio/mpeg
10316      27 image/gif
10317      26 image/tiff
10318      26 application/ogg
10319      25 audio/x-mp3
10320      22 image/bmp
10321      21 audio/x-wav
10322      19 audio/x-mpegurl
10323      19 audio/x-mpeg
10324      18 video/mpeg
10325      18 audio/x-scpls
10326      18 audio/x-flac
10327      18 application/x-ogg
10328      17 video/x-ms-asf
10329      17 text/html
10330      17 audio/x-musepack
10331      16 image/x-xbitmap
10332 </pre>
10333
10334 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
10335
10336 <pre>
10337   count MIME type
10338   ----- -----------------------
10339      31 text/plain
10340      31 image/png
10341      31 image/jpeg
10342      29 audio/mpeg
10343      28 application/ogg
10344      27 image/gif
10345      26 image/tiff
10346      26 audio/x-mp3
10347      23 audio/x-wav
10348      22 image/bmp
10349      21 audio/x-flac
10350      20 audio/x-mpegurl
10351      19 audio/x-mpeg
10352      18 video/x-ms-asf
10353      18 video/mpeg
10354      18 audio/x-scpls
10355      18 application/x-ogg
10356      17 audio/x-musepack
10357      16 video/x-ms-wmv
10358      16 video/x-msvideo
10359 </pre>
10360
10361 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
10362 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
10363 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
10364 issues.</p>
10365
10366 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
10367 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
10368
10369       </div>
10370       <div class="tags">
10371
10372
10373         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10374
10375
10376       </div>
10377     </div>
10378     <div class="padding"></div>
10379
10380     <div class="entry">
10381       <div class="title">
10382         <a href="https://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>
10383       </div>
10384       <div class="date">
10385         15th January 2013
10386       </div>
10387       <div class="body">
10388         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
10389 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
10390 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
10391 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
10392 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
10393 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
10394 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
10395 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
10396 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
10397 packages.</p>
10398
10399 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
10400 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
10401 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
10402 modalias.</p>
10403
10404 <p><blockquote>
10405 Package: package-name
10406 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
10407 </blockquote></p>
10408
10409 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
10410 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
10411
10412 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
10413 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
10414
10415 <p><blockquote>
10416 Package: cheese
10417 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
10418 </blockquote></p>
10419
10420 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
10421 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
10422
10423 <p><blockquote>
10424 Package: pcmciautils
10425 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
10426 </blockquote></p>
10427
10428 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
10429 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
10430
10431 <p><blockquote>
10432 Package: colorhug-client
10433 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
10434 </blockquote></p>
10435
10436 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
10437 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
10438 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
10439
10440 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
10441 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
10442 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
10443 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
10444 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
10445 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
10446 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
10447 Raring.</p>
10448
10449 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
10450 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
10451 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
10452 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
10453 try the
10454 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
10455 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
10456 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
10457 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
10458
10459 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
10460 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
10461
10462 <p><blockquote>
10463 % ./hw-support-lookup
10464 <br>yubikey-personalization
10465 <br>%
10466 </blockquote></p>
10467
10468 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
10469 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
10470
10471 <p><blockquote>
10472 % ./hw-support-lookup
10473 <br>pcmciautils
10474 <br>%
10475 </blockquote></p>
10476
10477 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
10478 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
10479 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
10480
10481 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
10482 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
10483 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
10484 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
10485 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
10486 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
10487 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
10488 see if it work.</p>
10489
10490 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
10491 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
10492 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
10493 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
10494
10495       </div>
10496       <div class="tags">
10497
10498
10499         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10500
10501
10502       </div>
10503     </div>
10504     <div class="padding"></div>
10505
10506     <div class="entry">
10507       <div class="title">
10508         <a href="https://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>
10509       </div>
10510       <div class="date">
10511         14th January 2013
10512       </div>
10513       <div class="body">
10514         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
10515 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
10516 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
10517 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
10518 in
10519 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
10520 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
10521
10522 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
10523
10524 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
10525 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
10526 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
10527 &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;,
10528 &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
10529 &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;.
10530
10531 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
10532 this shell script:</p>
10533
10534 <pre>
10535 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
10536 </pre>
10537
10538 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
10539 using modinfo:</p>
10540
10541 <pre>
10542 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
10543 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
10544 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
10545 %
10546 </pre>
10547
10548 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
10549
10550 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
10551 Bridge memory controller:</p>
10552
10553 <p><blockquote>
10554 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
10555 </blockquote></p>
10556
10557 <p>This represent these values:</p>
10558
10559 <pre>
10560  v   00008086  (vendor)
10561  d   00002770  (device)
10562  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
10563  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
10564  bc  06        (bus class)
10565  sc  00        (bus subclass)
10566  i   00        (interface)
10567 </pre>
10568
10569 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
10570 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
10571 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
10572 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
10573
10574 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
10575 means.</p>
10576
10577 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
10578
10579 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
10580 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
10581
10582 <p><blockquote>
10583 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
10584 </blockquote></p>
10585
10586 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
10587
10588 <pre>
10589  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
10590  p    0001  (device product)
10591  d    0206  (bcddevice)
10592  dc     09  (device class)
10593  dsc    00  (device subclass)
10594  dp     00  (device protocol)
10595  ic     09  (interface class)
10596  isc    00  (interface subclass)
10597  ip     00  (interface protocol)
10598 </pre>
10599
10600 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
10601 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
10602 these alias entries show up:</p>
10603
10604 <p><blockquote>
10605 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
10606 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
10607 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
10608 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
10609 </blockquote></p>
10610
10611 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
10612 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
10613 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
10614
10615 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
10616
10617 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
10618 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
10619
10620 <p><blockquote>
10621 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
10622 </blockquote></p>
10623
10624 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
10625
10626 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
10627
10628 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
10629 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
10630 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
10631
10632 <p><blockquote>
10633 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
10634 </blockquote></p>
10635
10636 <p>The values present are</p>
10637
10638 <pre>
10639  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
10640  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
10641  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
10642  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
10643  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
10644  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
10645  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
10646  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
10647  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
10648  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
10649  ct   10             (chassis type)
10650  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
10651 </pre>
10652
10653 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
10654 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
10655
10656 <pre>
10657   3 Desktop
10658   4 Low Profile Desktop
10659   5 Pizza Box
10660   6 Mini Tower
10661   7 Tower
10662   8 Portable
10663   9 Laptop
10664  10 Notebook
10665  11 Hand Held
10666  12 Docking Station
10667  13 All In One
10668  14 Sub Notebook
10669  15 Space-saving
10670  16 Lunch Box
10671  17 Main Server Chassis
10672  18 Expansion Chassis
10673  19 Sub Chassis
10674  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
10675  21 Peripheral Chassis
10676  22 RAID Chassis
10677  23 Rack Mount Chassis
10678  24 Sealed-case PC
10679  25 Multi-system
10680  26 CompactPCI
10681  27 AdvancedTCA
10682  28 Blade
10683  29 Blade Enclosing
10684 </pre>
10685
10686 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
10687 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
10688 claim it is a desktop.</p>
10689
10690 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
10691
10692 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
10693 test machine:</p>
10694
10695 <p><blockquote>
10696 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
10697 </blockquote></p>
10698
10699 <p>The values present are</p>
10700
10701 <pre>
10702   ty  01  (type)
10703   pr  00  (prototype)
10704   id  00  (id)
10705   ex  00  (extra)
10706 </pre>
10707
10708 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
10709 the valid values are.</p>
10710
10711 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
10712
10713 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
10714 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
10715 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
10716 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
10717 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
10718 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
10719 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
10720
10721 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
10722
10723 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
10724 one can use the following shell script:</p>
10725
10726 <pre>
10727   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
10728     echo "$id" ; \
10729     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
10730   done
10731 </pre>
10732
10733 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
10734 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
10735
10736 <pre>
10737   acpi:ACPI0003:
10738     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
10739   acpi:device:
10740   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
10741   acpi:IBM0068:
10742     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
10743     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
10744     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
10745     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
10746   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
10747     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
10748     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
10749     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
10750   [...]
10751 </pre>
10752
10753 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
10754 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
10755 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
10756 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
10757
10758 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
10759 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
10760 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
10761
10762       </div>
10763       <div class="tags">
10764
10765
10766         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10767
10768
10769       </div>
10770     </div>
10771     <div class="padding"></div>
10772
10773     <div class="entry">
10774       <div class="title">
10775         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
10776       </div>
10777       <div class="date">
10778         10th January 2013
10779       </div>
10780       <div class="body">
10781         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
10782 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
10783 Launcher and updated the Debian package
10784 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
10785 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
10786 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
10787 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
10788 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
10789 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
10790 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
10791 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
10792 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
10793 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
10794 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
10795 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
10796 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
10797 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
10798 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
10799
10800       </div>
10801       <div class="tags">
10802
10803
10804         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
10805
10806
10807       </div>
10808     </div>
10809     <div class="padding"></div>
10810
10811     <div class="entry">
10812       <div class="title">
10813         <a href="https://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>
10814       </div>
10815       <div class="date">
10816          9th January 2013
10817       </div>
10818       <div class="body">
10819         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
10820 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
10821 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
10822 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
10823 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
10824 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
10825 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
10826 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
10827 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
10828 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
10829 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
10830
10831 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
10832 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
10833 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
10834 simple:
10835
10836 <ul>
10837
10838 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
10839   starting when a user log in.</li>
10840
10841 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
10842   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
10843
10844 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
10845   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
10846   packages.</li>
10847
10848 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
10849   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
10850
10851 </ul>
10852
10853 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
10854 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
10855 discover database to find packages and
10856 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
10857 packages.</p>
10858
10859 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
10860 draft package is now checked into
10861 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
10862 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
10863 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
10864 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
10865 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
10866 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
10867 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
10868 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
10869 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
10870 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
10871 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
10872 because of the freeze).</p>
10873
10874 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
10875 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
10876 inserted):</p>
10877
10878 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
10879
10880 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
10881 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
10882 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
10883
10884 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
10885 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
10886 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
10887 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
10888 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
10889 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
10890 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
10891
10892 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
10893 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
10894 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
10895 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
10896 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
10897 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
10898 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
10899 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
10900 not be installed?</p>
10901
10902 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
10903 please send me an email. :)</p>
10904
10905       </div>
10906       <div class="tags">
10907
10908
10909         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
10910
10911
10912       </div>
10913     </div>
10914     <div class="padding"></div>
10915
10916     <div class="entry">
10917       <div class="title">
10918         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
10919       </div>
10920       <div class="date">
10921          2nd January 2013
10922       </div>
10923       <div class="body">
10924         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
10925 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
10926 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
10927 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
10928 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
10929 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
10930 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
10931 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
10932 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
10933 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
10934
10935 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
10936 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
10937 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
10938
10939       </div>
10940       <div class="tags">
10941
10942
10943         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
10944
10945
10946       </div>
10947     </div>
10948     <div class="padding"></div>
10949
10950     <div class="entry">
10951       <div class="title">
10952         <a href="https://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>
10953       </div>
10954       <div class="date">
10955         25th December 2012
10956       </div>
10957       <div class="body">
10958         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
10959 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
10960
10961 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
10962 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
10963 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
10964 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
10965 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
10966 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
10967 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
10968 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
10969 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
10970 name.</p>
10971
10972 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
10973 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
10974 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
10975
10976 <blockquote><pre>
10977 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
10978 cd bitcoin
10979 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
10980 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
10981 </pre></blockquote>
10982
10983 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
10984 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
10985 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
10986 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
10987 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
10988 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
10989 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
10990 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
10991 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
10992
10993 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
10994 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
10995 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
10996
10997       </div>
10998       <div class="tags">
10999
11000
11001         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11002
11003
11004       </div>
11005     </div>
11006     <div class="padding"></div>
11007
11008     <div class="entry">
11009       <div class="title">
11010         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
11011       </div>
11012       <div class="date">
11013         21st December 2012
11014       </div>
11015       <div class="body">
11016         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
11017 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
11018 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
11019 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
11020 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
11021 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
11022 is now maintained by a
11023 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
11024 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
11025 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
11026 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
11027 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
11028 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
11029 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
11030 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
11031 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
11032 Corallo in a
11033 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
11034 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
11035 Debian package.</p>
11036
11037 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
11038 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
11039 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
11040 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
11041 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
11042 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
11043 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
11044 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
11045 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
11046 new version to unstable.
11047
11048 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
11049 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
11050 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
11051 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
11052 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
11053 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
11054 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
11055 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
11056 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
11057 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
11058 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
11059 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
11060 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
11061 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
11062 have not tested them.</p>
11063
11064 <p>My
11065 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
11066 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
11067 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
11068 years ago, as can be
11069 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
11070 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
11071 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
11072 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
11073 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
11074 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
11075 the same address as last time,
11076 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
11077
11078       </div>
11079       <div class="tags">
11080
11081
11082         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11083
11084
11085       </div>
11086     </div>
11087     <div class="padding"></div>
11088
11089     <div class="entry">
11090       <div class="title">
11091         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
11092       </div>
11093       <div class="date">
11094          7th September 2012
11095       </div>
11096       <div class="body">
11097         <p>As I
11098 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
11099 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
11100 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
11101 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
11102 repository for the project</a>.</p>
11103
11104 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
11105 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
11106 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
11107 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
11108
11109 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
11110 PostScript formats at
11111 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
11112 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
11113
11114       </div>
11115       <div class="tags">
11116
11117
11118         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
11119
11120
11121       </div>
11122     </div>
11123     <div class="padding"></div>
11124
11125     <div class="entry">
11126       <div class="title">
11127         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
11128       </div>
11129       <div class="date">
11130         16th August 2012
11131       </div>
11132       <div class="body">
11133         <p>I dag fyller
11134 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
11135 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
11136 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
11137
11138       </div>
11139       <div class="tags">
11140
11141
11142         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
11143
11144
11145       </div>
11146     </div>
11147     <div class="padding"></div>
11148
11149     <div class="entry">
11150       <div class="title">
11151         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
11152       </div>
11153       <div class="date">
11154         24th June 2012
11155       </div>
11156       <div class="body">
11157         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
11158 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
11159 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
11160 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
11161 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
11162 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
11163 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
11164 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
11165 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
11166 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
11167 missing in my book.</p>
11168
11169 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
11170 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
11171 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
11172 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
11173 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
11174 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
11175 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
11176
11177       </div>
11178       <div class="tags">
11179
11180
11181         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
11182
11183
11184       </div>
11185     </div>
11186     <div class="padding"></div>
11187
11188     <div class="entry">
11189       <div class="title">
11190         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
11191       </div>
11192       <div class="date">
11193         21st November 2011
11194       </div>
11195       <div class="body">
11196         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
11197 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
11198 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
11199 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
11200 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
11201 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
11202 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
11203 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
11204 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
11205 the tools to do so.</p>
11206
11207 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
11208 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
11209 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
11210 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
11211
11212 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
11213 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
11214 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
11215 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
11216 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
11217 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
11218 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
11219 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
11220
11221 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
11222 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
11223 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
11224
11225 <p><pre>
11226 #!/usr/bin/perl
11227 use strict;
11228 use warnings;
11229 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
11230 BEGIN {
11231     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
11232     my %rhelmodules = (
11233         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
11234         );
11235     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
11236         eval "use $module;";
11237         if ($@) {
11238             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
11239             system("yum install -y $pkg");
11240             eval "use $module;";
11241         }
11242     }
11243 }
11244 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
11245
11246 upgrade_dell();
11247
11248 exit 0;
11249
11250 sub run_firmware_script {
11251     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
11252     unless ($script) {
11253         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
11254         exit 1
11255     }
11256     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
11257
11258     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
11259         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
11260     } else {
11261         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
11262     }
11263 }
11264
11265 sub run_firmware_scripts {
11266     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
11267     # Run firmware packages
11268     for my $dir (@dirs) {
11269         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
11270         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
11271         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
11272             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
11273             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
11274         }
11275         closedir $dh;
11276     }
11277 }
11278
11279 sub download {
11280     my $url = shift;
11281     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
11282     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
11283 }
11284
11285 sub upgrade_dell {
11286     my @dirs;
11287     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
11288     chomp $product;
11289
11290     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
11291
11292         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
11293         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
11294
11295         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
11296             CLEANUP => 1
11297             );
11298         chdir($tmpdir);
11299         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
11300         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
11301         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
11302         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
11303         my $fwopts = "-q";
11304         if (@paths) {
11305             for my $url (@paths) {
11306                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
11307             }
11308             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
11309         } else {
11310             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
11311             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
11312         }
11313         chdir('/');
11314     } else {
11315         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
11316         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
11317     }
11318 }
11319
11320 sub fetch_dell_fw {
11321     my $path = shift;
11322     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
11323     download($url);
11324 }
11325
11326 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
11327 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
11328 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
11329 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
11330     my $filename = shift;
11331
11332     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
11333     chomp $product;
11334     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
11335
11336     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
11337
11338     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
11339     my @paths;
11340     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
11341         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
11342         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
11343         my $oscode;
11344         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
11345             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
11346         } else {
11347             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
11348         }
11349         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
11350         {
11351             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
11352         }
11353     }
11354     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
11355         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
11356
11357         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
11358         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
11359
11360         my $cpath = $component->{path};
11361         for my $path (@paths) {
11362             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
11363                 push(@paths, $cpath);
11364             }
11365         }
11366     }
11367     return @paths;
11368 }
11369 </pre>
11370
11371 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
11372 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
11373 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
11374 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
11375 outdated.</p>
11376
11377       </div>
11378       <div class="tags">
11379
11380
11381         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11382
11383
11384       </div>
11385     </div>
11386     <div class="padding"></div>
11387
11388     <div class="entry">
11389       <div class="title">
11390         <a href="https://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>
11391       </div>
11392       <div class="date">
11393          4th August 2011
11394       </div>
11395       <div class="body">
11396         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
11397 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
11398 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
11399 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
11400 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
11401 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
11402 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
11403 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
11404 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
11405
11406 <p><blockquote>
11407 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
11408 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
11409 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
11410 </blockquote></p>
11411
11412 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
11413 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
11414 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
11415 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
11416 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
11417 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
11418 hard to explain.</p>
11419
11420 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
11421 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
11422 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
11423 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
11424 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
11425 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
11426 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
11427 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
11428 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
11429 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
11430 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
11431 mode).</p>
11432
11433 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
11434 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
11435 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
11436 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
11437 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
11438 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
11439 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
11440 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
11441 after visiting single user mode.</p>
11442
11443 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
11444 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
11445 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
11446 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
11447 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
11448 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
11449 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
11450 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
11451
11452 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
11453 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
11454 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
11455
11456       </div>
11457       <div class="tags">
11458
11459
11460         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11461
11462
11463       </div>
11464     </div>
11465     <div class="padding"></div>
11466
11467     <div class="entry">
11468       <div class="title">
11469         <a href="https://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>
11470       </div>
11471       <div class="date">
11472         30th July 2011
11473       </div>
11474       <div class="body">
11475         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
11476 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
11477 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
11478 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
11479 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
11480 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
11481 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
11482 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
11483 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
11484 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
11485 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
11486 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
11487 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
11488
11489 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
11490 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
11491 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
11492 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
11493 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
11494 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
11495 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
11496 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
11497 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
11498
11499 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
11500 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
11501 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
11502 is presented.</p>
11503
11504 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
11505 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
11506 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
11507 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
11508 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
11509 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
11510 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
11511 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
11512 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
11513 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
11514 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
11515 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
11516 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
11517 find time to push this forward.</p>
11518
11519       </div>
11520       <div class="tags">
11521
11522
11523         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11524
11525
11526       </div>
11527     </div>
11528     <div class="padding"></div>
11529
11530     <div class="entry">
11531       <div class="title">
11532         <a href="https://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>
11533       </div>
11534       <div class="date">
11535         29th July 2011
11536       </div>
11537       <div class="body">
11538         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
11539 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
11540 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
11541 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
11542 issues.</p>
11543
11544 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
11545 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
11546 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
11547
11548 <ol>
11549
11550 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
11551 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
11552 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
11553 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
11554 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
11555 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
11556 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
11557 Debian.</li>
11558
11559 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
11560 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
11561 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
11562 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
11563 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
11564 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
11565 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
11566 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
11567 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
11568 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
11569 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
11570 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
11571 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
11572
11573 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
11574 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
11575 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
11576 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
11577 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
11578 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
11579 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
11580 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
11581 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
11582 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
11583
11584 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
11585 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
11586 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
11587 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
11588 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
11589 latter behaviour.</li>
11590
11591 </ol>
11592
11593 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
11594 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
11595 it do not matter much.</p>
11596
11597 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
11598 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
11599 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
11600
11601       </div>
11602       <div class="tags">
11603
11604
11605         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
11606
11607
11608       </div>
11609     </div>
11610     <div class="padding"></div>
11611
11612     <div class="entry">
11613       <div class="title">
11614         <a href="https://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>
11615       </div>
11616       <div class="date">
11617         26th July 2011
11618       </div>
11619       <div class="body">
11620         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
11621 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
11622 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
11623 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
11624 security support for a few years.</p>
11625
11626 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
11627 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
11628 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
11629 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
11630 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
11631 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
11632 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
11633 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
11634 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
11635 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
11636 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
11637 easier in the future.</p>
11638
11639 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
11640 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
11641 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
11642 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
11643 do not have time for.</p>
11644
11645       </div>
11646       <div class="tags">
11647
11648
11649         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>.
11650
11651
11652       </div>
11653     </div>
11654     <div class="padding"></div>
11655
11656     <div class="entry">
11657       <div class="title">
11658         <a href="https://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>
11659       </div>
11660       <div class="date">
11661          3rd April 2011
11662       </div>
11663       <div class="body">
11664         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
11665 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
11666 update in English.</p>
11667
11668 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
11669 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
11670 of the British service
11671 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
11672 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
11673 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
11674 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
11675 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
11676 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
11677 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
11678 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
11679 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
11680 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
11681 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
11682 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
11683 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
11684
11685 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
11686 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
11687 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
11688 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
11689 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
11690 public infrastructure.</p>
11691
11692 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
11693 such service?</p>
11694
11695       </div>
11696       <div class="tags">
11697
11698
11699         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
11700
11701
11702       </div>
11703     </div>
11704     <div class="padding"></div>
11705
11706     <div class="entry">
11707       <div class="title">
11708         <a href="https://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>
11709       </div>
11710       <div class="date">
11711         28th January 2011
11712       </div>
11713       <div class="body">
11714         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
11715 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
11716 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
11717 available on the Internet, and check our locally
11718 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
11719 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
11720 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
11721 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
11722 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
11723 out which security holes were present in our free software
11724 collection.</p>
11725
11726 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
11727 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
11728 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
11729 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
11730 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
11731 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
11732 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
11733 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
11734 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
11735 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
11736 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
11737 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
11738 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
11739 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
11740 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
11741 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
11742
11743 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
11744 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
11745 check out, one could look up
11746 <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
11747 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
11748 The most recent one is
11749 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
11750 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
11751 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
11752
11753 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
11754 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
11755 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
11756 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
11757 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
11758 security issues out.</p>
11759
11760 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
11761 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
11762 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
11763 RHEL is providing
11764 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
11765 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
11766 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
11767
11768 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
11769 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
11770 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
11771 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
11772 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
11773 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
11774 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
11775 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
11776 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
11777 established soon.</p>
11778
11779 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
11780 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
11781 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
11782 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
11783 for their packages.</p>
11784
11785       </div>
11786       <div class="tags">
11787
11788
11789         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
11790
11791
11792       </div>
11793     </div>
11794     <div class="padding"></div>
11795
11796     <div class="entry">
11797       <div class="title">
11798         <a href="https://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>
11799       </div>
11800       <div class="date">
11801         23rd January 2011
11802       </div>
11803       <div class="body">
11804         <p>In the
11805 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
11806 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
11807 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
11808 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
11809 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
11810 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
11811 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
11812 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
11813 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
11814 one of my machines like this:</p>
11815
11816 <pre>
11817 loaded modules:
11818 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
11819 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
11820 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
11821 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
11822 10de:03ec pata_amd
11823 10de:03f6 sata_nv
11824 1022:1103 k8temp
11825 109e:036e bttv
11826 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
11827 11ab:4364 sky2
11828 </pre>
11829
11830 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
11831 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
11832
11833 <pre>
11834 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
11835     echo loaded pci modules:
11836     (
11837         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
11838         for address in * ; do
11839             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
11840                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
11841                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
11842                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
11843                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
11844                     echo "$id $module"
11845                 fi
11846             fi
11847         done
11848     )
11849     echo
11850 fi
11851 </pre>
11852
11853 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
11854 mappings:</p>
11855
11856 <pre>
11857 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
11858     echo loaded usb modules:
11859     (
11860         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
11861         for address in * ; do
11862             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
11863                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
11864                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
11865                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
11866                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
11867                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
11868                         echo "$id $module"
11869                     fi
11870                 fi
11871             fi
11872         done
11873     )
11874     echo
11875 fi
11876 </pre>
11877
11878 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
11879 well.</p>
11880
11881       </div>
11882       <div class="tags">
11883
11884
11885         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11886
11887
11888       </div>
11889     </div>
11890     <div class="padding"></div>
11891
11892     <div class="entry">
11893       <div class="title">
11894         <a href="https://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>
11895       </div>
11896       <div class="date">
11897         22nd December 2010
11898       </div>
11899       <div class="body">
11900         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
11901 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
11902 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
11903 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
11904 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
11905 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
11906 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
11907 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
11908 university.</p>
11909
11910 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
11911 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
11912 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
11913 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
11914 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
11915 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
11916 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
11917 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
11918
11919 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
11920 I perform on a new model.</p>
11921
11922 <ul>
11923
11924 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
11925 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
11926 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
11927
11928 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
11929 installation, X.org is working.</li>
11930
11931 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
11932 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
11933 reported by the program.</li>
11934
11935 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
11936 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
11937 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
11938 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
11939 normally test this by playing
11940 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
11941 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
11942
11943 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
11944 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
11945
11946 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
11947 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
11948
11949 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
11950 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
11951
11952 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
11953 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
11954 few.</li>
11955
11956 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
11957 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
11958 notice this.</li>
11959
11960 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
11961 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
11962 resume.</li>
11963
11964 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
11965 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
11966 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
11967 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
11968 not.</li>
11969
11970 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
11971 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
11972 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
11973 existence.</li>
11974
11975 </ul>
11976
11977 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
11978 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
11979 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
11980 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
11981 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
11982 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
11983 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
11984 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
11985
11986       </div>
11987       <div class="tags">
11988
11989
11990         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11991
11992
11993       </div>
11994     </div>
11995     <div class="padding"></div>
11996
11997     <div class="entry">
11998       <div class="title">
11999         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
12000       </div>
12001       <div class="date">
12002         11th December 2010
12003       </div>
12004       <div class="body">
12005         <p>As I continue to explore
12006 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
12007 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
12008 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
12009
12010 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
12011 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
12012 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
12013 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
12014 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
12015 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
12016 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
12017 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
12018 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
12019 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
12020 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
12021 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
12022 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
12023 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
12024 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
12025 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
12026 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
12027 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
12028 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
12029 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
12030
12031 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
12032 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
12033 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
12034 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
12035 If the Skolelinux foundation
12036 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
12037 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
12038 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
12039 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
12040 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
12041 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
12042 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
12043 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
12044
12045 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
12046 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
12047 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
12048 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
12049 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
12050 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
12051 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
12052 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
12053 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
12054 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
12055 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
12056 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
12057 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
12058 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
12059 currencies.</p>
12060
12061 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
12062 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
12063 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
12064 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
12065 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
12066 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
12067 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
12068 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
12069 BitCoins.  Check out
12070 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
12071 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
12072 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
12073 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
12074 yet.</p>
12075
12076 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
12077 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
12078 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
12079 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
12080 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
12081
12082       </div>
12083       <div class="tags">
12084
12085
12086         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
12087
12088
12089       </div>
12090     </div>
12091     <div class="padding"></div>
12092
12093     <div class="entry">
12094       <div class="title">
12095         <a href="https://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>
12096       </div>
12097       <div class="date">
12098         10th December 2010
12099       </div>
12100       <div class="body">
12101         <p>With this weeks lawless
12102 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
12103 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
12104 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
12105 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
12106 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
12107 A blog post from
12108 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
12109 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
12110 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
12111 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
12112 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
12113 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
12114 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
12115
12116 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
12117 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
12118 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
12119 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
12120 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
12121 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
12122 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
12123 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
12124 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
12125 Debian</a> soon.</p>
12126
12127 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
12128 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
12129 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
12130 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
12131 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
12132 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
12133 you can even get
12134 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
12135 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
12136 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
12137 on the current exchange rates.</p>
12138
12139 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
12140 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
12141 donations to the address
12142 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
12143
12144       </div>
12145       <div class="tags">
12146
12147
12148         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
12149
12150
12151       </div>
12152     </div>
12153     <div class="padding"></div>
12154
12155     <div class="entry">
12156       <div class="title">
12157         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
12158       </div>
12159       <div class="date">
12160         27th November 2010
12161       </div>
12162       <div class="body">
12163         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
12164 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
12165 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
12166 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
12167 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
12168 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
12169 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
12170 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
12171
12172 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
12173 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
12174 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
12175 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
12176 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
12177 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
12178 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
12179 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
12180 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
12181 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
12182 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
12183
12184 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
12185 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
12186 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
12187 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
12188 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
12189 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
12190 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
12191 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
12192 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
12193 what is going on.</p>
12194
12195       </div>
12196       <div class="tags">
12197
12198
12199         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
12200
12201
12202       </div>
12203     </div>
12204     <div class="padding"></div>
12205
12206     <div class="entry">
12207       <div class="title">
12208         <a href="https://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>
12209       </div>
12210       <div class="date">
12211         22nd November 2010
12212       </div>
12213       <div class="body">
12214         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
12215 upgrade testing of the
12216 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
12217 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
12218 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
12219 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
12220
12221 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
12222
12223 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12224
12225 <blockquote><p>
12226   apache2.2-bin
12227   aptdaemon
12228   baobab
12229   binfmt-support
12230   browser-plugin-gnash
12231   cheese-common
12232   cli-common
12233   cups-pk-helper
12234   dmz-cursor-theme
12235   empathy
12236   empathy-common
12237   freedesktop-sound-theme
12238   freeglut3
12239   gconf-defaults-service
12240   gdm-themes
12241   gedit-plugins
12242   geoclue
12243   geoclue-hostip
12244   geoclue-localnet
12245   geoclue-manual
12246   geoclue-yahoo
12247   gnash
12248   gnash-common
12249   gnome
12250   gnome-backgrounds
12251   gnome-cards-data
12252   gnome-codec-install
12253   gnome-core
12254   gnome-desktop-environment
12255   gnome-disk-utility
12256   gnome-screenshot
12257   gnome-search-tool
12258   gnome-session-canberra
12259   gnome-system-log
12260   gnome-themes-extras
12261   gnome-themes-more
12262   gnome-user-share
12263   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
12264   gstreamer0.10-tools
12265   gtk2-engines
12266   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
12267   gtk2-engines-smooth
12268   hamster-applet
12269   libapache2-mod-dnssd
12270   libapr1
12271   libaprutil1
12272   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
12273   libaprutil1-ldap
12274   libart2.0-cil
12275   libboost-date-time1.42.0
12276   libboost-python1.42.0
12277   libboost-thread1.42.0
12278   libchamplain-0.4-0
12279   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
12280   libcheese-gtk18
12281   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
12282   libcryptui0
12283   libdiscid0
12284   libelf1
12285   libepc-1.0-2
12286   libepc-common
12287   libepc-ui-1.0-2
12288   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
12289   libfreerdp0
12290   libgconf2.0-cil
12291   libgdata-common
12292   libgdata7
12293   libgdu-gtk0
12294   libgee2
12295   libgeoclue0
12296   libgexiv2-0
12297   libgif4
12298   libglade2.0-cil
12299   libglib2.0-cil
12300   libgmime2.4-cil
12301   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
12302   libgnome2.24-cil
12303   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
12304   libgpod-common
12305   libgpod4
12306   libgtk2.0-cil
12307   libgtkglext1
12308   libgtksourceview2.0-common
12309   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
12310   libmono-addins0.2-cil
12311   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
12312   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
12313   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
12314   libmono-posix2.0-cil
12315   libmono-security2.0-cil
12316   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
12317   libmono-system2.0-cil
12318   libmtp8
12319   libmusicbrainz3-6
12320   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
12321   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
12322   libopal3.6.8
12323   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
12324   libpt2.6.7
12325   libpython2.6
12326   librpm1
12327   librpmio1
12328   libsdl1.2debian
12329   libsrtp0
12330   libssh-4
12331   libtelepathy-farsight0
12332   libtelepathy-glib0
12333   libtidy-0.99-0
12334   media-player-info
12335   mesa-utils
12336   mono-2.0-gac
12337   mono-gac
12338   mono-runtime
12339   nautilus-sendto
12340   nautilus-sendto-empathy
12341   p7zip-full
12342   pkg-config
12343   python-aptdaemon
12344   python-aptdaemon-gtk
12345   python-axiom
12346   python-beautifulsoup
12347   python-bugbuddy
12348   python-clientform
12349   python-coherence
12350   python-configobj
12351   python-crypto
12352   python-cupshelpers
12353   python-elementtree
12354   python-epsilon
12355   python-evolution
12356   python-feedparser
12357   python-gdata
12358   python-gdbm
12359   python-gst0.10
12360   python-gtkglext1
12361   python-gtksourceview2
12362   python-httplib2
12363   python-louie
12364   python-mako
12365   python-markupsafe
12366   python-mechanize
12367   python-nevow
12368   python-notify
12369   python-opengl
12370   python-openssl
12371   python-pam
12372   python-pkg-resources
12373   python-pyasn1
12374   python-pysqlite2
12375   python-rdflib
12376   python-serial
12377   python-tagpy
12378   python-twisted-bin
12379   python-twisted-conch
12380   python-twisted-core
12381   python-twisted-web
12382   python-utidylib
12383   python-webkit
12384   python-xdg
12385   python-zope.interface
12386   remmina
12387   remmina-plugin-data
12388   remmina-plugin-rdp
12389   remmina-plugin-vnc
12390   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
12391   rhythmbox-plugins
12392   rpm-common
12393   rpm2cpio
12394   seahorse-plugins
12395   shotwell
12396   software-center
12397   system-config-printer-udev
12398   telepathy-gabble
12399   telepathy-mission-control-5
12400   telepathy-salut
12401   tomboy
12402   totem
12403   totem-coherence
12404   totem-mozilla
12405   totem-plugins
12406   transmission-common
12407   xdg-user-dirs
12408   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
12409   xserver-xephyr
12410 </p></blockquote>
12411
12412 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12413
12414 <blockquote><p>
12415   cheese
12416   ekiga
12417   eog
12418   epiphany-extensions
12419   evolution-exchange
12420   fast-user-switch-applet
12421   file-roller
12422   gcalctool
12423   gconf-editor
12424   gdm
12425   gedit
12426   gedit-common
12427   gnome-games
12428   gnome-games-data
12429   gnome-nettool
12430   gnome-system-tools
12431   gnome-themes
12432   gnuchess
12433   gucharmap
12434   guile-1.8-libs
12435   libavahi-ui0
12436   libdmx1
12437   libgalago3
12438   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
12439   libgtksourceview2.0-0
12440   liblircclient0
12441   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
12442   libspeexdsp1
12443   libsvga1
12444   rhythmbox
12445   seahorse
12446   sound-juicer
12447   system-config-printer
12448   totem-common
12449   transmission-gtk
12450   vinagre
12451   vino
12452 </p></blockquote>
12453
12454 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12455
12456 <blockquote><p>
12457   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
12458 </p></blockquote>
12459
12460 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12461
12462 <blockquote><p>
12463 [nothing]
12464 </p></blockquote>
12465
12466 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
12467
12468 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12469
12470 <blockquote><p>
12471   ksmserver
12472 </p></blockquote>
12473
12474 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12475
12476 <blockquote><p>
12477   kwin
12478   network-manager-kde
12479 </p></blockquote>
12480
12481 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12482
12483 <blockquote><p>
12484   arts
12485   dolphin
12486   freespacenotifier
12487   google-gadgets-gst
12488   google-gadgets-xul
12489   kappfinder
12490   kcalc
12491   kcharselect
12492   kde-core
12493   kde-plasma-desktop
12494   kde-standard
12495   kde-window-manager
12496   kdeartwork
12497   kdeartwork-emoticons
12498   kdeartwork-style
12499   kdeartwork-theme-icon
12500   kdebase
12501   kdebase-apps
12502   kdebase-workspace
12503   kdebase-workspace-bin
12504   kdebase-workspace-data
12505   kdeeject
12506   kdelibs
12507   kdeplasma-addons
12508   kdeutils
12509   kdewallpapers
12510   kdf
12511   kfloppy
12512   kgpg
12513   khelpcenter4
12514   kinfocenter
12515   konq-plugins-l10n
12516   konqueror-nsplugins
12517   kscreensaver
12518   kscreensaver-xsavers
12519   ktimer
12520   kwrite
12521   libgle3
12522   libkde4-ruby1.8
12523   libkonq5
12524   libkonq5-templates
12525   libnetpbm10
12526   libplasma-ruby
12527   libplasma-ruby1.8
12528   libqt4-ruby1.8
12529   marble-data
12530   marble-plugins
12531   netpbm
12532   nuvola-icon-theme
12533   plasma-dataengines-workspace
12534   plasma-desktop
12535   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
12536   plasma-runners-addons
12537   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
12538   plasma-scriptengine-python
12539   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
12540   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
12541   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
12542   plasma-scriptengines
12543   plasma-wallpapers-addons
12544   plasma-widget-folderview
12545   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
12546   ruby
12547   sweeper
12548   update-notifier-kde
12549   xscreensaver-data-extra
12550   xscreensaver-gl
12551   xscreensaver-gl-extra
12552   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
12553 </p></blockquote>
12554
12555 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12556
12557 <blockquote><p>
12558   ark
12559   google-gadgets-common
12560   google-gadgets-qt
12561   htdig
12562   kate
12563   kdebase-bin
12564   kdebase-data
12565   kdepasswd
12566   kfind
12567   klipper
12568   konq-plugins
12569   konqueror
12570   ksysguard
12571   ksysguardd
12572   libarchive1
12573   libcln6
12574   libeet1
12575   libeina-svn-06
12576   libggadget-1.0-0b
12577   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
12578   libgps19
12579   libkdecorations4
12580   libkephal4
12581   libkonq4
12582   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
12583   libkscreensaver5
12584   libksgrd4
12585   libksignalplotter4
12586   libkunitconversion4
12587   libkwineffects1a
12588   libmarblewidget4
12589   libntrack-qt4-1
12590   libntrack0
12591   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
12592   libplasmaclock4a
12593   libplasmagenericshell4
12594   libprocesscore4a
12595   libprocessui4a
12596   libqalculate5
12597   libqedje0a
12598   libqtruby4shared2
12599   libqzion0a
12600   libruby1.8
12601   libscim8c2a
12602   libsmokekdecore4-3
12603   libsmokekdeui4-3
12604   libsmokekfile3
12605   libsmokekhtml3
12606   libsmokekio3
12607   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
12608   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
12609   libsmokekparts3
12610   libsmokektexteditor3
12611   libsmokekutils3
12612   libsmokenepomuk3
12613   libsmokephonon3
12614   libsmokeplasma3
12615   libsmokeqtcore4-3
12616   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
12617   libsmokeqtgui4-3
12618   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
12619   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
12620   libsmokeqtscript4-3
12621   libsmokeqtsql4-3
12622   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
12623   libsmokeqttest4-3
12624   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
12625   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
12626   libsmokeqtxml4-3
12627   libsmokesolid3
12628   libsmokesoprano3
12629   libtaskmanager4a
12630   libtidy-0.99-0
12631   libweather-ion4a
12632   libxklavier16
12633   libxxf86misc1
12634   okteta
12635   oxygencursors
12636   plasma-dataengines-addons
12637   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
12638   plasma-widget-lancelot
12639   plasma-widgets-addons
12640   plasma-widgets-workspace
12641   polkit-kde-1
12642   ruby1.8
12643   systemsettings
12644   update-notifier-common
12645 </p></blockquote>
12646
12647 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
12648 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
12649 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
12650 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
12651
12652       </div>
12653       <div class="tags">
12654
12655
12656         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12657
12658
12659       </div>
12660     </div>
12661     <div class="padding"></div>
12662
12663     <div class="entry">
12664       <div class="title">
12665         <a href="https://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>
12666       </div>
12667       <div class="date">
12668         22nd November 2010
12669       </div>
12670       <div class="body">
12671         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
12672 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
12673 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
12674 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
12675 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
12676 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
12677 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
12678 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
12679 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
12680
12681 <p>I found
12682 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
12683 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
12684 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
12685 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
12686 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
12687 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
12688
12689 <pre>
12690 #!/bin/sh
12691
12692 # Based on
12693 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
12694
12695 set -e
12696 set -x
12697
12698 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
12699     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
12700     exit 1
12701 else
12702     host="$1"
12703 fi
12704
12705 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
12706     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
12707     exit 1
12708 fi
12709
12710 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
12711 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12712 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12713 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
12714
12715 img=$host.img
12716 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
12717 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
12718
12719 parted $img mklabel msdos
12720 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
12721 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
12722 parted $img set 1 boot on
12723
12724 modprobe dm-mod
12725 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
12726 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
12727
12728 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
12729 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
12730 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
12731
12732 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
12733 losetup -d /dev/loop0
12734 </pre>
12735
12736 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
12737 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
12738
12739 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
12740 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
12741 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
12742 seem to work just fine.</p>
12743
12744       </div>
12745       <div class="tags">
12746
12747
12748         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12749
12750
12751       </div>
12752     </div>
12753     <div class="padding"></div>
12754
12755     <div class="entry">
12756       <div class="title">
12757         <a href="https://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>
12758       </div>
12759       <div class="date">
12760         20th November 2010
12761       </div>
12762       <div class="body">
12763         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
12764 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
12765 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
12766 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
12767
12768 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
12769 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
12770 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
12771
12772 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
12773
12774 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12775
12776 <blockquote><p>
12777   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
12778   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
12779   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
12780   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
12781   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
12782   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
12783   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
12784   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
12785   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
12786   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
12787   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
12788   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
12789   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
12790   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
12791   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
12792   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
12793   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
12794   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
12795   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
12796   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
12797   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
12798   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
12799   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
12800   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
12801   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
12802   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
12803   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
12804   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
12805   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
12806   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
12807   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
12808   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
12809   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
12810   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
12811   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
12812   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
12813   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
12814   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
12815   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
12816   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
12817   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
12818   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
12819   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
12820   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
12821   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
12822   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
12823   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
12824   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
12825   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
12826   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
12827   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
12828   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
12829   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
12830   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
12831   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
12832   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
12833   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
12834   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
12835   zip
12836 </p></blockquote>
12837
12838 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
12839
12840 <blockquote><p>
12841   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
12842   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
12843   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
12844   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
12845   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
12846   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
12847   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
12848   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
12849   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
12850   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
12851   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
12852   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
12853   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
12854   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
12855   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
12856   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
12857   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
12858   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
12859   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
12860   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
12861   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
12862   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
12863   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
12864   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
12865   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
12866   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
12867   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
12868   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
12869   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
12870 </p></blockquote>
12871
12872 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12873
12874 <blockquote><p>
12875   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
12876 </p></blockquote>
12877
12878 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12879
12880 <blockquote><p>
12881 [nothing]
12882 </p></blockquote>
12883
12884 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
12885
12886 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12887
12888 <blockquote><p>
12889   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
12890   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
12891   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
12892   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
12893   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
12894   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
12895   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
12896   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
12897   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
12898   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
12899   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
12900   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
12901   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
12902   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
12903   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
12904   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
12905   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
12906   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
12907   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
12908   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
12909   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
12910   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
12911   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
12912   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
12913   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
12914   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
12915   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
12916   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
12917   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
12918   ttf-sazanami-gothic
12919 </p></blockquote>
12920
12921 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12922
12923 <blockquote><p>
12924   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
12925   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
12926   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
12927   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
12928   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
12929   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
12930   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
12931   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
12932   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
12933   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
12934   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
12935   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
12936   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
12937   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
12938   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
12939   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
12940   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
12941   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
12942   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
12943   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
12944   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
12945   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
12946   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
12947   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
12948   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
12949   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
12950   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
12951   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
12952   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
12953   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
12954   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
12955   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
12956   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
12957 </p></blockquote>
12958
12959 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12960
12961 <blockquote><p>
12962   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
12963   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
12964   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
12965   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
12966   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
12967   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
12968   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
12969 </p></blockquote>
12970
12971 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12972
12973 <blockquote><p>
12974   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
12975 </p></blockquote>
12976
12977       </div>
12978       <div class="tags">
12979
12980
12981         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12982
12983
12984       </div>
12985     </div>
12986     <div class="padding"></div>
12987
12988     <div class="entry">
12989       <div class="title">
12990         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
12991       </div>
12992       <div class="date">
12993         20th November 2010
12994       </div>
12995       <div class="body">
12996         <p>Answering
12997 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
12998 call from the Gnash project</a> for
12999 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
13000 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
13001 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
13002 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
13003 releases out more often.</p>
13004
13005 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
13006 I have considered setting up a <a
13007 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
13008 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
13009 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
13010 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
13011 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
13012 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
13013 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
13014 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
13015 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
13016 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
13017 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
13018 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
13019
13020       </div>
13021       <div class="tags">
13022
13023
13024         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13025
13026
13027       </div>
13028     </div>
13029     <div class="padding"></div>
13030
13031     <div class="entry">
13032       <div class="title">
13033         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
13034       </div>
13035       <div class="date">
13036          9th November 2010
13037       </div>
13038       <div class="body">
13039         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
13040
13041 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
13042 3D linked in from
13043 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
13044 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
13045
13046       </div>
13047       <div class="tags">
13048
13049
13050         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13051
13052
13053       </div>
13054     </div>
13055     <div class="padding"></div>
13056
13057     <div class="entry">
13058       <div class="title">
13059         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
13060       </div>
13061       <div class="date">
13062         24th October 2010
13063       </div>
13064       <div class="body">
13065         <p>Some updates.</p>
13066
13067 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
13068 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
13069 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
13070 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
13071 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
13072 :)</p>
13073
13074 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
13075 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
13076 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
13077 It is called
13078 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
13079 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
13080 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
13081 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
13082 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
13083 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
13084
13085 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
13086 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
13087 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
13088 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
13089 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
13090 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
13091 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
13092 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
13093 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
13094 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
13095
13096       </div>
13097       <div class="tags">
13098
13099
13100         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
13101
13102
13103       </div>
13104     </div>
13105     <div class="padding"></div>
13106
13107     <div class="entry">
13108       <div class="title">
13109         <a href="https://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>
13110       </div>
13111       <div class="date">
13112          4th September 2010
13113       </div>
13114       <div class="body">
13115         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
13116 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
13117 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
13118 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
13119 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
13120 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
13121 installed.</p>
13122
13123 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
13124 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
13125 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
13126 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
13127 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
13128 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
13129 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
13130 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
13131 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
13132
13133 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
13134 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
13135 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
13136 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
13137 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
13138 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
13139 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
13140 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
13141 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
13142 pages they want to visit.</p>
13143
13144 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
13145 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
13146 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
13147 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
13148 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
13149 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
13150 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
13151 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
13152 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
13153 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
13154 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
13155
13156       </div>
13157       <div class="tags">
13158
13159
13160         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
13161
13162
13163       </div>
13164     </div>
13165     <div class="padding"></div>
13166
13167     <div class="entry">
13168       <div class="title">
13169         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
13170       </div>
13171       <div class="date">
13172         27th July 2010
13173       </div>
13174       <div class="body">
13175         <p>I discovered this while doing
13176 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
13177 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
13178 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
13179 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
13180 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
13181
13182 <p>An example is from todays
13183 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
13184 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
13185 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
13186 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
13187 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
13188 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
13189 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
13190
13191 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
13192
13193 <blockquote><pre>
13194 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
13195  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
13196   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
13197 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
13198  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
13199 </pre></blockquote>
13200
13201 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
13202 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
13203 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
13204 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
13205 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
13206 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
13207 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
13208 of dependency loops.</p>
13209
13210 <p>Thanks to
13211 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
13212 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
13213 dependencies
13214 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
13215 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
13216
13217 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
13218 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
13219 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
13220 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
13221 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
13222 it.</p>
13223
13224       </div>
13225       <div class="tags">
13226
13227
13228         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13229
13230
13231       </div>
13232     </div>
13233     <div class="padding"></div>
13234
13235     <div class="entry">
13236       <div class="title">
13237         <a href="https://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>
13238       </div>
13239       <div class="date">
13240         17th July 2010
13241       </div>
13242       <div class="body">
13243         <p>This is a
13244 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
13245 on my
13246 <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
13247 work</a> on
13248 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
13249 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
13250
13251 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
13252 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
13253 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
13254 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
13255
13256 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
13257 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
13258 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
13259
13260 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
13261
13262 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
13263 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
13264 the web.
13265
13266 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
13267 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
13268 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
13269 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
13270 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
13271 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
13272
13273 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
13274 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
13275 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
13276 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
13277 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
13278 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
13279 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
13280 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
13281 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
13282 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
13283 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
13284 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
13285 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
13286 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
13287 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
13288 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
13289
13290 <blockquote><pre>
13291 ldapsearch -h ldap \
13292   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
13293   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
13294   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
13295   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
13296   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
13297   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
13298
13299 ldapsearch -h ldap \
13300   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
13301   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
13302   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
13303   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
13304   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
13305 </pre></blockquote>
13306
13307 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
13308 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
13309 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
13310 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13311 also exist.</p>
13312
13313 <blockquote><pre>
13314 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13315 objectclass: top
13316 objectclass: dnsdomain
13317 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13318 dc: tjener
13319 arecord: 10.0.2.2
13320 associateddomain: tjener.intern
13321
13322 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13323 objectclass: top
13324 objectclass: dnsdomain2
13325 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13326 dc: 2
13327 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
13328 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
13329 </pre></blockquote>
13330
13331 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
13332 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
13333 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
13334 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
13335 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
13336 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
13337 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
13338 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
13339 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
13340 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
13341 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
13342 instead.</p>
13343
13344 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
13345 like this:</p>
13346
13347 <blockquote><pre>
13348 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
13349   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
13350   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
13351   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
13352   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
13353   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
13354
13355 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
13356   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
13357 </pre></blockquote>
13358
13359 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
13360 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
13361 reverse lookups.</p>
13362
13363 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
13364 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
13365 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
13366 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
13367
13368 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
13369 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
13370 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
13371
13372 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
13373 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
13374 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
13375 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
13376 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
13377
13378 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
13379 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
13380 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
13381 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
13382 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
13383
13384 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
13385 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
13386 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
13387 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
13388 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
13389 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
13390
13391 <blockquote><pre>
13392 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
13393     SUP top
13394     AUXILIARY
13395     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
13396           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
13397           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
13398           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
13399           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
13400     ))
13401 </pre></blockquote>
13402
13403 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
13404 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
13405 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
13406 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
13407 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
13408 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
13409
13410 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
13411
13412 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
13413 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
13414 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
13415 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
13416 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
13417
13418 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
13419 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
13420 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
13421 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
13422
13423 <blockquote><pre>
13424 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
13425 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
13426 </pre></blockquote>
13427
13428 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
13429 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
13430 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
13431 search result is this entry:</p>
13432
13433 <blockquote><pre>
13434 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13435 cn: dhcp
13436 objectClass: top
13437 objectClass: dhcpServer
13438 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13439 </pre></blockquote>
13440
13441 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
13442 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
13443 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
13444 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
13445 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
13446 The search result is this entry:</p>
13447
13448 <blockquote><pre>
13449 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13450 cn: DHCP Config
13451 objectClass: top
13452 objectClass: dhcpService
13453 objectClass: dhcpOptions
13454 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13455 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
13456 dhcpStatements: authoritative
13457 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
13458 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
13459 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
13460 </pre></blockquote>
13461
13462 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
13463 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
13464 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
13465 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
13466 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
13467 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
13468 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
13469 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
13470 related computer objects.</p>
13471
13472 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
13473 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
13474 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
13475 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
13476 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
13477 like:</p>
13478
13479 <blockquote><pre>
13480 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13481 cn: hostname
13482 objectClass: top
13483 objectClass: dhcpHost
13484 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
13485 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
13486 </pre></blockquote>
13487
13488 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
13489 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
13490 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
13491 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
13492 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
13493 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
13494 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
13495 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
13496 structural object class.
13497
13498 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
13499
13500 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
13501 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
13502 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
13503 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
13504 in the configuration.</p>
13505
13506 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
13507 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
13508 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
13509 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
13510 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
13511 structure.</p>
13512
13513 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
13514 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
13515
13516 <blockquote><pre>
13517 ou=services
13518   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
13519     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
13520     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
13521       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
13522         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
13523     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
13524       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
13525         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
13526     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
13527       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
13528 </pre></blockquote>
13529
13530 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
13531 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
13532 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
13533 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
13534
13535 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
13536 like this:</p>
13537
13538 <blockquote><pre>
13539 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13540 dc: hostname
13541 objectClass: top
13542 objectClass: dhcpHost
13543 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13544 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
13545 associateddomain: hostname.intern
13546 arecord: 10.11.12.13
13547 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
13548 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
13549 </pre></blockquote>
13550
13551 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
13552 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
13553 auxiliary object class.</p>
13554
13555       </div>
13556       <div class="tags">
13557
13558
13559         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13560
13561
13562       </div>
13563     </div>
13564     <div class="padding"></div>
13565
13566     <div class="entry">
13567       <div class="title">
13568         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
13569       </div>
13570       <div class="date">
13571         14th July 2010
13572       </div>
13573       <div class="body">
13574         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
13575 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
13576 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
13577 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
13578 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
13579
13580 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
13581 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
13582
13583 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
13584 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
13585 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
13586 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
13587 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
13588 to a slave DNS server.</p>
13589
13590 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
13591 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
13592 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
13593 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
13594 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
13595 seem to work.</p>
13596
13597 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
13598 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
13599 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
13600 this:</p>
13601
13602 <blockquote><pre>
13603   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13604   cn: hostname
13605   objectClass: dhcphost
13606   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13607   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
13608   associateddomain: hostname.intern
13609   arecord: 10.11.12.13
13610   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
13611   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
13612   ldapconfigsound: Y
13613 </pre></blockquote>
13614
13615 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
13616 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
13617 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
13618 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
13619
13620 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
13621 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
13622 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
13623 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
13624 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
13625 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
13626 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
13627 might be a good place to put it.</p>
13628
13629 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13630 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13631
13632       </div>
13633       <div class="tags">
13634
13635
13636         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13637
13638
13639       </div>
13640     </div>
13641     <div class="padding"></div>
13642
13643     <div class="entry">
13644       <div class="title">
13645         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
13646       </div>
13647       <div class="date">
13648         11th July 2010
13649       </div>
13650       <div class="body">
13651         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
13652 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
13653 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
13654 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
13655
13656 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
13657 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
13658 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
13659 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
13660 LTSP clients.</p>
13661
13662 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
13663 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
13664 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
13665
13666 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
13667 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
13668 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
13669
13670 <blockquote><pre>
13671 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
13672 #
13673 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
13674 #
13675 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
13676 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
13677 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
13678 #
13679 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
13680 # existence of attribute names.
13681 #
13682 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
13683 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
13684 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
13685 #
13686 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
13687 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
13688 #
13689 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
13690 #     SUP top
13691 #     AUXILIARY
13692 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
13693
13694 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
13695 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
13696     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
13697     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
13698         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
13699         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
13700             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
13701             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
13702             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
13703             # bass value on to clients
13704             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
13705         done
13706     done
13707 fi
13708 </pre></blockquote>
13709
13710 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
13711 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
13712 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
13713 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
13714 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
13715
13716 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13717 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13718
13719 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
13720 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
13721 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
13722 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
13723 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
13724 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
13725
13726       </div>
13727       <div class="tags">
13728
13729
13730         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13731
13732
13733       </div>
13734     </div>
13735     <div class="padding"></div>
13736
13737     <div class="entry">
13738       <div class="title">
13739         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
13740       </div>
13741       <div class="date">
13742          9th July 2010
13743       </div>
13744       <div class="body">
13745         <p>Since
13746 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
13747 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
13748 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
13749 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
13750 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
13751 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
13752 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
13753 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
13754 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
13755 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
13756 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
13757 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
13758 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
13759
13760       </div>
13761       <div class="tags">
13762
13763
13764         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13765
13766
13767       </div>
13768     </div>
13769     <div class="padding"></div>
13770
13771     <div class="entry">
13772       <div class="title">
13773         <a href="https://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>
13774       </div>
13775       <div class="date">
13776          3rd July 2010
13777       </div>
13778       <div class="body">
13779         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
13780 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
13781 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
13782 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
13783 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
13784 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
13785 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
13786 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
13787
13788 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
13789 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
13790 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
13791 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
13792 publish the difference.</p>
13793
13794 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13795
13796 <blockquote><p>
13797   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
13798   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
13799   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
13800   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
13801   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
13802   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
13803   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
13804   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
13805 </p></blockquote>
13806
13807 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
13808
13809 <blockquote><p>
13810   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
13811   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
13812   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
13813   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
13814   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
13815   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
13816   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
13817   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
13818   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
13819   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
13820   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
13821   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
13822   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
13823   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
13824   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
13825   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
13826   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
13827   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
13828   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
13829   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
13830 </p></blockquote>
13831
13832 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13833
13834 <blockquote><p>
13835   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
13836   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
13837   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
13838   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
13839   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
13840   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
13841   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
13842   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
13843   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
13844   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
13845   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
13846   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
13847   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
13848   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
13849   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
13850   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
13851   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
13852   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
13853   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
13854   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
13855   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
13856 </p></blockquote>
13857
13858 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13859
13860 <blockquote><p>
13861   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
13862   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
13863   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
13864 </p></blockquote>
13865
13866 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
13867 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
13868 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
13869 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
13870 the difference somewhat.
13871
13872       </div>
13873       <div class="tags">
13874
13875
13876         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13877
13878
13879       </div>
13880     </div>
13881     <div class="padding"></div>
13882
13883     <div class="entry">
13884       <div class="title">
13885         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
13886       </div>
13887       <div class="date">
13888         28th June 2010
13889       </div>
13890       <div class="body">
13891         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
13892 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
13893 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
13894 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
13895 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
13896 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
13897 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
13898 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
13899 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
13900 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
13901
13902 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
13903 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
13904 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
13905 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
13906 released.</p>
13907
13908 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
13909 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
13910 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
13911 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
13912
13913 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
13914 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13915
13916 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
13917 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
13918 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
13919 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
13920 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
13921
13922       </div>
13923       <div class="tags">
13924
13925
13926         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13927
13928
13929       </div>
13930     </div>
13931     <div class="padding"></div>
13932
13933     <div class="entry">
13934       <div class="title">
13935         <a href="https://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>
13936       </div>
13937       <div class="date">
13938         24th June 2010
13939       </div>
13940       <div class="body">
13941         <p>A while back, I
13942 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
13943 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
13944 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
13945 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
13946
13947 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
13948 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
13949 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
13950 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
13951
13952 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
13953 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
13954 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
13955 Debian Edu.</p>
13956
13957 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
13958 the
13959 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
13960 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
13961 available today from IETF.</p>
13962
13963 <pre>
13964 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
13965 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
13966 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
13967  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
13968         NAME 'dhcpHost'
13969         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
13970 -       SUP top
13971 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
13972         MUST cn
13973         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
13974         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
13975 </pre>
13976
13977 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
13978 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
13979 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
13980
13981 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13982 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13983
13984       </div>
13985       <div class="tags">
13986
13987
13988         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
13989
13990
13991       </div>
13992     </div>
13993     <div class="padding"></div>
13994
13995     <div class="entry">
13996       <div class="title">
13997         <a href="https://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>
13998       </div>
13999       <div class="date">
14000         16th June 2010
14001       </div>
14002       <div class="body">
14003         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
14004 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
14005 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
14006 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
14007 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
14008 this:
14009
14010 <blockquote><pre>
14011 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
14012 tasksel --new-install
14013 </pre></blockquote>
14014
14015 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
14016 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
14017 any output what so ever.
14018
14019 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
14020 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
14021 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
14022 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
14023 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
14024 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
14025 code like this:
14026
14027 <blockquote><pre>
14028 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
14029 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
14030 $cmd
14031 </pre></blockquote>
14032
14033 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
14034 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
14035 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
14036 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
14037 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
14038 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
14039 installation.</p>
14040
14041 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
14042 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
14043 like this.</p>
14044
14045       </div>
14046       <div class="tags">
14047
14048
14049         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
14050
14051
14052       </div>
14053     </div>
14054     <div class="padding"></div>
14055
14056     <div class="entry">
14057       <div class="title">
14058         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
14059       </div>
14060       <div class="date">
14061         13th June 2010
14062       </div>
14063       <div class="body">
14064         <p>My
14065 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
14066 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
14067 finally made the upgrade logs available from
14068 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
14069 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
14070 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
14071 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
14072
14073 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
14074 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
14075 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
14076 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
14077 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
14078 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
14079 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
14080 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
14081
14082 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
14083 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
14084 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
14085 too surprising.</p>
14086
14087 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
14088 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
14089 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
14090 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
14091 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
14092 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
14093 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
14094 continue.</p>
14095
14096 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
14097 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
14098   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
14099   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
14100   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
14101   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
14102   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
14103   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
14104   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
14105   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
14106   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
14107   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
14108   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
14109   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
14110   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
14111   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
14112   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
14113   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
14114   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
14115   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
14116   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
14117   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
14118   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
14119   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
14120   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
14121   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
14122   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
14123   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
14124   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
14125   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
14126
14127 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
14128
14129 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
14130   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
14131   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
14132   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
14133   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
14134   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
14135   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
14136   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
14137   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
14138   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
14139   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
14140   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
14141   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
14142   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
14143   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
14144   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
14145   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
14146   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
14147   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
14148   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
14149   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
14150   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
14151   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
14152   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
14153   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
14154   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
14155   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
14156   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
14157   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
14158   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
14159   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
14160   zip</p>
14161
14162 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
14163
14164 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
14165   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
14166   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
14167   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
14168   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
14169   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
14170   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
14171   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
14172   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
14173   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
14174   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
14175   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
14176   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
14177   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
14178   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
14179   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
14180   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
14181   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
14182   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
14183   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
14184   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
14185   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
14186   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
14187   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
14188   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
14189   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
14190   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
14191   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
14192
14193 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
14194 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
14195   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
14196   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
14197   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
14198   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
14199   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
14200   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
14201   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
14202   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
14203   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
14204   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
14205   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
14206   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
14207   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
14208   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
14209   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
14210   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
14211   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
14212   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
14213   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
14214   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
14215   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
14216   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
14217   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
14218   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
14219   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
14220   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
14221   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
14222   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
14223   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
14224   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
14225   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
14226   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
14227   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
14228   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
14229   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
14230   xulrunner-1.9</p>
14231
14232
14233       </div>
14234       <div class="tags">
14235
14236
14237         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14238
14239
14240       </div>
14241     </div>
14242     <div class="padding"></div>
14243
14244     <div class="entry">
14245       <div class="title">
14246         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
14247       </div>
14248       <div class="date">
14249         11th June 2010
14250       </div>
14251       <div class="body">
14252         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
14253 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
14254 have been discovered and reported in the process
14255 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
14256 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
14257 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
14258 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
14259 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
14260
14261 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
14262 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
14263 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
14264 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
14265 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
14266 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
14267
14268 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
14269 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
14270 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
14271 is created.  The bug report
14272 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
14273 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
14274 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
14275 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
14276 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
14277 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
14278 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
14279 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
14280 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
14281 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
14282 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
14283 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
14284 Debian Squeeze.</p>
14285
14286 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
14287 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
14288 trick:</p>
14289
14290 <blockquote><pre>
14291 #!/bin/sh
14292 set -ex
14293
14294 if [ "$1" ] ; then
14295     desktop=$1
14296 else
14297     desktop=gnome
14298 fi
14299
14300 from=lenny
14301 to=squeeze
14302
14303 exec &lt; /dev/null
14304 unset LANG
14305 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
14306 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
14307 fuser -mv .
14308 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
14309 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
14310 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
14311 #!/bin/sh
14312 exit 101
14313 EOF
14314 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
14315 exit_cleanup() {
14316     umount $tmpdir/proc
14317 }
14318 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
14319 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
14320 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
14321
14322 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
14323
14324 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
14325 # to return the correct answers.
14326 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
14327     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
14328
14329 # Include the desktop and laptop task
14330 for test in desktop laptop ; do
14331     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
14332 #!/bin/sh
14333 exit 2
14334 EOF
14335     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
14336 done
14337
14338 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
14339 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
14340 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
14341 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
14342
14343 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
14344 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
14345 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
14346 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
14347 fuser -mv
14348 </pre></blockquote>
14349
14350 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
14351 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
14352 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
14353 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
14354 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
14355 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
14356
14357 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
14358 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
14359 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
14360 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
14361 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
14362 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
14363 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
14364
14365 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
14366 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
14367 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
14368 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
14369 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
14370 packages.</p>
14371
14372       </div>
14373       <div class="tags">
14374
14375
14376         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14377
14378
14379       </div>
14380     </div>
14381     <div class="padding"></div>
14382
14383     <div class="entry">
14384       <div class="title">
14385         <a href="https://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>
14386       </div>
14387       <div class="date">
14388          6th June 2010
14389       </div>
14390       <div class="body">
14391         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
14392 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
14393 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
14394 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
14395 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
14396 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
14397 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
14398
14399 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
14400 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
14401 COLUMNS):</p>
14402
14403 <blockquote><pre>
14404 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
14405 previous=N
14406 PREVLEVEL=
14407 RUNLEVEL=
14408 runlevel=S
14409 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
14410 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
14411 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
14412 </pre></blockquote>
14413
14414 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
14415 script.</p>
14416
14417 <blockquote><pre>
14418 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
14419 previous=N
14420 PREVLEVEL=N
14421 RUNLEVEL=S
14422 runlevel=S
14423 </pre></blockquote>
14424
14425 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
14426 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
14427 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
14428
14429 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
14430 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
14431 choice.</p>
14432
14433       </div>
14434       <div class="tags">
14435
14436
14437         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14438
14439
14440       </div>
14441     </div>
14442     <div class="padding"></div>
14443
14444     <div class="entry">
14445       <div class="title">
14446         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
14447       </div>
14448       <div class="date">
14449          6th June 2010
14450       </div>
14451       <div class="body">
14452         <p>Via the
14453 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
14454 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
14455 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
14456 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
14457 following the standards wars of today.</p>
14458
14459       </div>
14460       <div class="tags">
14461
14462
14463         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
14464
14465
14466       </div>
14467     </div>
14468     <div class="padding"></div>
14469
14470     <div class="entry">
14471       <div class="title">
14472         <a href="https://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>
14473       </div>
14474       <div class="date">
14475          3rd June 2010
14476       </div>
14477       <div class="body">
14478         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
14479 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
14480 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
14481 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
14482 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
14483
14484 <blockquote><pre>
14485 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
14486   vendor                    count
14487   Dell Computer Corporation     1
14488     PowerEdge 1750              1
14489   IBM                           1
14490     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
14491   Intel                         2
14492   [no-dmi-info]                 3
14493 maintainer:~#
14494 </pre></blockquote>
14495
14496 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
14497 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
14498 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
14499 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
14500 option to list the individual machines.</p>
14501
14502 <p>A larger list is
14503 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
14504 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
14505 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
14506 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
14507 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
14508 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
14509 collector.</p>
14510
14511       </div>
14512       <div class="tags">
14513
14514
14515         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
14516
14517
14518       </div>
14519     </div>
14520     <div class="padding"></div>
14521
14522     <div class="entry">
14523       <div class="title">
14524         <a href="https://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>
14525       </div>
14526       <div class="date">
14527          1st June 2010
14528       </div>
14529       <div class="body">
14530         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
14531 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
14532 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
14533 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
14534 wait.</p>
14535
14536 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
14537 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
14538 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
14539 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
14540 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
14541 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
14542
14543 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
14544 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
14545 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
14546 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
14547 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
14548 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
14549 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
14550 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
14551
14552 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
14553
14554       </div>
14555       <div class="tags">
14556
14557
14558         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14559
14560
14561       </div>
14562     </div>
14563     <div class="padding"></div>
14564
14565     <div class="entry">
14566       <div class="title">
14567         <a href="https://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>
14568       </div>
14569       <div class="date">
14570         27th May 2010
14571       </div>
14572       <div class="body">
14573         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
14574 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
14575 issues are known and should be solved:
14576
14577 <p><ul>
14578
14579 <li>The wicd package seen to
14580 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
14581 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
14582 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
14583 seem to be on the case.</li>
14584
14585 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
14586 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
14587 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
14588 maintainer is on the case.</li>
14589
14590 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
14591 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
14592 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
14593 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
14594 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
14595 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
14596 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
14597 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
14598
14599 </ul></p>
14600
14601 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
14602 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
14603 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
14604 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
14605
14606 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
14607 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
14608 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
14609 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
14610
14611 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
14612
14613       </div>
14614       <div class="tags">
14615
14616
14617         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14618
14619
14620       </div>
14621     </div>
14622     <div class="padding"></div>
14623
14624     <div class="entry">
14625       <div class="title">
14626         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
14627       </div>
14628       <div class="date">
14629         22nd May 2010
14630       </div>
14631       <div class="body">
14632         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
14633 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
14634 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
14635 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
14636
14637 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
14638 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
14639 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
14640 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
14641 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
14642 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
14643 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
14644 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
14645 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
14646 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
14647 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
14648 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
14649 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
14650 going to work.</p>
14651
14652 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
14653 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
14654 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
14655 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
14656 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
14657 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
14658 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
14659 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
14660 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
14661 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
14662 Edu.</p>
14663
14664 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
14665 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
14666 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
14667 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
14668 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
14669 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
14670
14671 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
14672 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
14673
14674       </div>
14675       <div class="tags">
14676
14677
14678         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14679
14680
14681       </div>
14682     </div>
14683     <div class="padding"></div>
14684
14685     <div class="entry">
14686       <div class="title">
14687         <a href="https://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>
14688       </div>
14689       <div class="date">
14690         14th May 2010
14691       </div>
14692       <div class="body">
14693         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
14694 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
14695 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
14696 expected, if I am to believe the
14697 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
14698 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
14699 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
14700 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
14701 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
14702 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
14703 version.</p>
14704
14705 More information about
14706 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
14707 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
14708 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
14709 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
14710
14711 <blockquote><pre>
14712 CONCURRENCY=none
14713 </pre></blockquote>
14714
14715 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
14716 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
14717 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
14718 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
14719
14720       </div>
14721       <div class="tags">
14722
14723
14724         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14725
14726
14727       </div>
14728     </div>
14729     <div class="padding"></div>
14730
14731     <div class="entry">
14732       <div class="title">
14733         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
14734       </div>
14735       <div class="date">
14736         14th May 2010
14737       </div>
14738       <div class="body">
14739         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
14740 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
14741 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
14742 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
14743 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
14744 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
14745 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
14746 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
14747
14748 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
14749 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
14750 this on the collector host:</p>
14751
14752 <blockquote><pre>
14753 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
14754 </pre></blockquote>
14755
14756 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
14757 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
14758
14759 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
14760 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
14761 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
14762 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
14763 written yet.</p>
14764
14765       </div>
14766       <div class="tags">
14767
14768
14769         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
14770
14771
14772       </div>
14773     </div>
14774     <div class="padding"></div>
14775
14776     <div class="entry">
14777       <div class="title">
14778         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
14779       </div>
14780       <div class="date">
14781         13th May 2010
14782       </div>
14783       <div class="body">
14784         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
14785 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
14786 has been
14787 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
14788
14789 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
14790 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
14791 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
14792 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
14793 based boot system.  Tollef is
14794 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
14795 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
14796 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
14797 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
14798 at the moment do not.</p>
14799
14800 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
14801 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
14802 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
14803 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
14804 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
14805 way forward.</p>
14806
14807 <p>In the mean time, based on the
14808 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
14809 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
14810 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
14811 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
14812 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
14813 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
14814 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
14815 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
14816
14817       </div>
14818       <div class="tags">
14819
14820
14821         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
14822
14823
14824       </div>
14825     </div>
14826     <div class="padding"></div>
14827
14828     <div class="entry">
14829       <div class="title">
14830         <a href="https://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>
14831       </div>
14832       <div class="date">
14833          6th May 2010
14834       </div>
14835       <div class="body">
14836         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
14837 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
14838 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
14839 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
14840 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
14841 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
14842 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
14843
14844 <blockquote><pre>
14845 CONCURRENCY=makefile
14846 </pre></blockquote>
14847
14848 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
14849 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
14850 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
14851 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
14852 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
14853 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
14854 make this happen.</p>
14855
14856 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
14857 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
14858 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
14859 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
14860 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
14861
14862 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
14863 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
14864 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
14865 fix the remaining issues.</p>
14866
14867 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
14868 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
14869 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
14870 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
14871
14872       </div>
14873       <div class="tags">
14874
14875
14876         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14877
14878
14879       </div>
14880     </div>
14881     <div class="padding"></div>
14882
14883     <div class="entry">
14884       <div class="title">
14885         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html">Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</a>
14886       </div>
14887       <div class="date">
14888         27th July 2009
14889       </div>
14890       <div class="body">
14891         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
14892 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
14893 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
14894 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
14895 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
14896 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
14897 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
14898
14899 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
14900 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
14901 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
14902
14903       </div>
14904       <div class="tags">
14905
14906
14907         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
14908
14909
14910       </div>
14911     </div>
14912     <div class="padding"></div>
14913
14914     <div class="entry">
14915       <div class="title">
14916         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
14917       </div>
14918       <div class="date">
14919         22nd July 2009
14920       </div>
14921       <div class="body">
14922         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
14923 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
14924 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
14925 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
14926 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
14927 the package up to date.</p>
14928
14929 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
14930 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
14931 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
14932 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
14933 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
14934 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
14935 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
14936 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
14937 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
14938 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
14939 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
14940 working on the future release.</p>
14941
14942 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
14943 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
14944
14945       </div>
14946       <div class="tags">
14947
14948
14949         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
14950
14951
14952       </div>
14953     </div>
14954     <div class="padding"></div>
14955
14956     <div class="entry">
14957       <div class="title">
14958         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
14959       </div>
14960       <div class="date">
14961         24th June 2009
14962       </div>
14963       <div class="body">
14964         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
14965 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
14966 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
14967 funded
14968 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
14969 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
14970 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
14971 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
14972 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
14973 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
14974
14975 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
14976 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
14977 boot:</p>
14978
14979 <ul>
14980
14981 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
14982
14983 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
14984    clock is in UTC.</li>
14985
14986 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
14987    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
14988    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
14989
14990 </ul>
14991
14992 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
14993 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
14994 Villegas</a>.
14995
14996 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
14997 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
14998 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
14999 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
15000 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
15001 using this.</p>
15002
15003 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
15004 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
15005 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
15006 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
15007 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
15008 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
15009 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
15010
15011       </div>
15012       <div class="tags">
15013
15014
15015         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15016
15017
15018       </div>
15019     </div>
15020     <div class="padding"></div>
15021
15022     <div class="entry">
15023       <div class="title">
15024         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
15025       </div>
15026       <div class="date">
15027         17th May 2009
15028       </div>
15029       <div class="body">
15030         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
15031 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
15032 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
15033 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
15034 dager siden kom
15035 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
15036 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
15037 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
15038 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
15039 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
15040
15041 <blockquote>
15042 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
15043 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
15044 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
15045 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
15046 </blockquote>
15047
15048 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
15049 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
15050 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
15051 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
15052 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
15053
15054 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
15055 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
15056 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
15057
15058       </div>
15059       <div class="tags">
15060
15061
15062         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
15063
15064
15065       </div>
15066     </div>
15067     <div class="padding"></div>
15068
15069     <div class="entry">
15070       <div class="title">
15071         <a href="https://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>
15072       </div>
15073       <div class="date">
15074          7th May 2009
15075       </div>
15076       <div class="body">
15077         <p>Kom over
15078 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
15079 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
15080 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
15081 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
15082 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
15083 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
15084 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
15085
15086       </div>
15087       <div class="tags">
15088
15089
15090         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15091
15092
15093       </div>
15094     </div>
15095     <div class="padding"></div>
15096
15097     <div class="entry">
15098       <div class="title">
15099         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
15100       </div>
15101       <div class="date">
15102          2nd May 2009
15103       </div>
15104       <div class="body">
15105         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
15106 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
15107 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
15108 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
15109 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
15110 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
15111 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
15112 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
15113 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
15114 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
15115 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
15116 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
15117 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
15118 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
15119 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
15120 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
15121 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
15122 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
15123 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
15124 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
15125
15126 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
15127 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
15128 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
15129 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
15130 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
15131 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
15132 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
15133 betydelige.</p>
15134
15135       </div>
15136       <div class="tags">
15137
15138
15139         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
15140
15141
15142       </div>
15143     </div>
15144     <div class="padding"></div>
15145
15146     <div class="entry">
15147       <div class="title">
15148         <a href="https://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>
15149       </div>
15150       <div class="date">
15151          2nd May 2009
15152       </div>
15153       <div class="body">
15154         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
15155 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
15156 do not yet know them.</p>
15157
15158 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
15159 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
15160 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
15161 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
15162 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
15163 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
15164 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
15165 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
15166 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
15167 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
15168 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
15169
15170 <p>The second one is
15171 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
15172 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
15173 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
15174 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
15175 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
15176 and the company behind it is running
15177 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
15178 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
15179 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
15180 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
15181 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
15182 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
15183 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
15184 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
15185
15186 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
15187 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
15188 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
15189 surrounded by today.</p>
15190
15191       </div>
15192       <div class="tags">
15193
15194
15195         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15196
15197
15198       </div>
15199     </div>
15200     <div class="padding"></div>
15201
15202     <div class="entry">
15203       <div class="title">
15204         <a href="https://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>
15205       </div>
15206       <div class="date">
15207         28th April 2009
15208       </div>
15209       <div class="body">
15210         <p>Julien Blache
15211 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
15212 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
15213 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
15214 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
15215 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
15216 properties.</p>
15217
15218       </div>
15219       <div class="tags">
15220
15221
15222         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15223
15224
15225       </div>
15226     </div>
15227     <div class="padding"></div>
15228
15229     <div class="entry">
15230       <div class="title">
15231         <a href="https://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>
15232       </div>
15233       <div class="date">
15234         30th March 2009
15235       </div>
15236       <div class="body">
15237         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
15238 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
15239 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
15240 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
15241 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
15242 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
15243 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
15244 application.</p>
15245
15246 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
15247 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
15248 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
15249 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
15250 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
15251 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
15252 blocked from doing so.</p>
15253
15254 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
15255 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
15256 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
15257 requirements change.</p>
15258
15259 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
15260 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
15261 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
15262
15263       </div>
15264       <div class="tags">
15265
15266
15267         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
15268
15269
15270       </div>
15271     </div>
15272     <div class="padding"></div>
15273
15274     <div class="entry">
15275       <div class="title">
15276         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
15277       </div>
15278       <div class="date">
15279         29th March 2009
15280       </div>
15281       <div class="body">
15282         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
15283 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
15284 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
15285 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
15286 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
15287 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
15288 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
15289 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
15290 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
15291 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
15292 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
15293 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
15294 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
15295 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
15296 now. :)</p>
15297
15298       </div>
15299       <div class="tags">
15300
15301
15302         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15303
15304
15305       </div>
15306     </div>
15307     <div class="padding"></div>
15308
15309     <div class="entry">
15310       <div class="title">
15311         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new  LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</a>
15312       </div>
15313       <div class="date">
15314         29th March 2009
15315       </div>
15316       <div class="body">
15317         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
15318 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
15319 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
15320 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
15321 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
15322 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
15323
15324 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
15325 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
15326 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
15327 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
15328 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
15329 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
15330 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
15331 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
15332 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
15333 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
15334 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
15335 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
15336 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
15337
15338 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
15339 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
15340 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
15341 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
15342
15343 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
15344 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
15345
15346 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
15347 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
15348 new IETF work group?</p>
15349
15350       </div>
15351       <div class="tags">
15352
15353
15354         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
15355
15356
15357       </div>
15358     </div>
15359     <div class="padding"></div>
15360
15361     <div class="entry">
15362       <div class="title">
15363         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
15364       </div>
15365       <div class="date">
15366         15th February 2009
15367       </div>
15368       <div class="body">
15369         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
15370 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
15371 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
15372 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
15373 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
15374 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
15375 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
15376 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
15377 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
15378 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
15379 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
15380 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
15381
15382       </div>
15383       <div class="tags">
15384
15385
15386         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
15387
15388
15389       </div>
15390     </div>
15391     <div class="padding"></div>
15392
15393     <div class="entry">
15394       <div class="title">
15395         <a href="https://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>
15396       </div>
15397       <div class="date">
15398          7th December 2008
15399       </div>
15400       <div class="body">
15401         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
15402 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
15403 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
15404 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
15405 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
15406 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
15407 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
15408 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
15409
15410 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
15411 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
15412 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
15413 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
15414 of these cards.</p>
15415
15416       </div>
15417       <div class="tags">
15418
15419
15420         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp</a>.
15421
15422
15423       </div>
15424     </div>
15425     <div class="padding"></div>
15426
15427     <div class="entry">
15428       <div class="title">
15429         <a href="https://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>
15430       </div>
15431       <div class="date">
15432         25th November 2008
15433       </div>
15434       <div class="body">
15435         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
15436 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
15437 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
15438 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
15439 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
15440 notes are available on
15441 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
15442 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
15443 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
15444 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
15445 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
15446 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
15447 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
15448 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
15449 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
15450
15451 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
15452 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
15453
15454       </div>
15455       <div class="tags">
15456
15457
15458         Tags: <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
15459
15460
15461       </div>
15462     </div>
15463     <div class="padding"></div>
15464
15465     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="debian.rss"><img src="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
15466     <div id="sidebar">
15467
15468
15469
15470 <h2>Archive</h2>
15471 <ul>
15472
15473 <li>2023
15474 <ul>
15475
15476 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2023/01/">January (3)</a></li>
15477
15478 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2023/02/">February (1)</a></li>
15479
15480 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2023/04/">April (2)</a></li>
15481
15482 </ul></li>
15483
15484 <li>2022
15485 <ul>
15486
15487 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/02/">February (1)</a></li>
15488
15489 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15490
15491 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/04/">April (2)</a></li>
15492
15493 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15494
15495 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/07/">July (1)</a></li>
15496
15497 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15498
15499 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/10/">October (1)</a></li>
15500
15501 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/12/">December (1)</a></li>
15502
15503 </ul></li>
15504
15505 <li>2021
15506 <ul>
15507
15508 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/01/">January (2)</a></li>
15509
15510 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/02/">February (1)</a></li>
15511
15512 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/05/">May (1)</a></li>
15513
15514 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/06/">June (1)</a></li>
15515
15516 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/07/">July (3)</a></li>
15517
15518 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/08/">August (1)</a></li>
15519
15520 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15521
15522 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/10/">October (1)</a></li>
15523
15524 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/12/">December (1)</a></li>
15525
15526 </ul></li>
15527
15528 <li>2020
15529 <ul>
15530
15531 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/02/">February (2)</a></li>
15532
15533 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/03/">March (2)</a></li>
15534
15535 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/04/">April (2)</a></li>
15536
15537 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/05/">May (3)</a></li>
15538
15539 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15540
15541 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/07/">July (1)</a></li>
15542
15543 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15544
15545 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/10/">October (1)</a></li>
15546
15547 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/11/">November (1)</a></li>
15548
15549 </ul></li>
15550
15551 <li>2019
15552 <ul>
15553
15554 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/01/">January (4)</a></li>
15555
15556 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/02/">February (3)</a></li>
15557
15558 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15559
15560 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/05/">May (2)</a></li>
15561
15562 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/06/">June (5)</a></li>
15563
15564 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/07/">July (2)</a></li>
15565
15566 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/08/">August (1)</a></li>
15567
15568 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15569
15570 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/11/">November (1)</a></li>
15571
15572 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/12/">December (4)</a></li>
15573
15574 </ul></li>
15575
15576 <li>2018
15577 <ul>
15578
15579 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/01/">January (1)</a></li>
15580
15581 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/02/">February (5)</a></li>
15582
15583 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/03/">March (5)</a></li>
15584
15585 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/04/">April (3)</a></li>
15586
15587 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15588
15589 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/07/">July (5)</a></li>
15590
15591 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/08/">August (3)</a></li>
15592
15593 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/09/">September (3)</a></li>
15594
15595 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/10/">October (5)</a></li>
15596
15597 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/11/">November (2)</a></li>
15598
15599 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/12/">December (4)</a></li>
15600
15601 </ul></li>
15602
15603 <li>2017
15604 <ul>
15605
15606 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/01/">January (4)</a></li>
15607
15608 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/02/">February (3)</a></li>
15609
15610 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/03/">March (5)</a></li>
15611
15612 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/04/">April (2)</a></li>
15613
15614 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/06/">June (5)</a></li>
15615
15616 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/07/">July (1)</a></li>
15617
15618 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/08/">August (1)</a></li>
15619
15620 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/09/">September (3)</a></li>
15621
15622 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/10/">October (5)</a></li>
15623
15624 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15625
15626 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/12/">December (4)</a></li>
15627
15628 </ul></li>
15629
15630 <li>2016
15631 <ul>
15632
15633 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (3)</a></li>
15634
15635 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/02/">February (2)</a></li>
15636
15637 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15638
15639 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/04/">April (8)</a></li>
15640
15641 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/05/">May (8)</a></li>
15642
15643 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15644
15645 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/07/">July (2)</a></li>
15646
15647 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/08/">August (5)</a></li>
15648
15649 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/09/">September (2)</a></li>
15650
15651 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/10/">October (3)</a></li>
15652
15653 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/11/">November (8)</a></li>
15654
15655 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/12/">December (5)</a></li>
15656
15657 </ul></li>
15658
15659 <li>2015
15660 <ul>
15661
15662 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
15663
15664 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
15665
15666 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
15667
15668 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
15669
15670 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
15671
15672 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
15673
15674 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
15675
15676 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
15677
15678 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
15679
15680 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
15681
15682 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
15683
15684 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (3)</a></li>
15685
15686 </ul></li>
15687
15688 <li>2014
15689 <ul>
15690
15691 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
15692
15693 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
15694
15695 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
15696
15697 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
15698
15699 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
15700
15701 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15702
15703 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
15704
15705 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
15706
15707 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
15708
15709 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
15710
15711 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15712
15713 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
15714
15715 </ul></li>
15716
15717 <li>2013
15718 <ul>
15719
15720 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
15721
15722 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
15723
15724 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
15725
15726 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
15727
15728 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
15729
15730 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
15731
15732 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
15733
15734 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
15735
15736 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
15737
15738 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
15739
15740 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
15741
15742 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
15743
15744 </ul></li>
15745
15746 <li>2012
15747 <ul>
15748
15749 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
15750
15751 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
15752
15753 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
15754
15755 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
15756
15757 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
15758
15759 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
15760
15761 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
15762
15763 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
15764
15765 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
15766
15767 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
15768
15769 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
15770
15771 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
15772
15773 </ul></li>
15774
15775 <li>2011
15776 <ul>
15777
15778 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
15779
15780 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
15781
15782 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
15783
15784 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
15785
15786 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
15787
15788 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15789
15790 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
15791
15792 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
15793
15794 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
15795
15796 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
15797
15798 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15799
15800 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
15801
15802 </ul></li>
15803
15804 <li>2010
15805 <ul>
15806
15807 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
15808
15809 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
15810
15811 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15812
15813 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
15814
15815 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
15816
15817 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
15818
15819 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
15820
15821 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
15822
15823 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
15824
15825 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
15826
15827 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
15828
15829 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
15830
15831 </ul></li>
15832
15833 <li>2009
15834 <ul>
15835
15836 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
15837
15838 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
15839
15840 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
15841
15842 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
15843
15844 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
15845
15846 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
15847
15848 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
15849
15850 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
15851
15852 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15853
15854 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
15855
15856 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15857
15858 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
15859
15860 </ul></li>
15861
15862 <li>2008
15863 <ul>
15864
15865 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
15866
15867 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
15868
15869 </ul></li>
15870
15871 </ul>
15872
15873
15874
15875 <h2>Tags</h2>
15876 <ul>
15877
15878  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (19)</a></li>
15879
15880  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
15881
15882  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
15883
15884  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
15885
15886  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/betalkontant">betalkontant (9)</a></li>
15887
15888  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (12)</a></li>
15889
15890  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (17)</a></li>
15891
15892  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
15893
15894  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
15895
15896  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (190)</a></li>
15897
15898  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (159)</a></li>
15899
15900  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook (9)</a></li>
15901
15902  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (11)</a></li>
15903
15904  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (18)</a></li>
15905
15906  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (30)</a></li>
15907
15908  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
15909
15910  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (446)</a></li>
15911
15912  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
15913
15914  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (14)</a></li>
15915
15916  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (34)</a></li>
15917
15918  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
15919
15920  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (20)</a></li>
15921
15922  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
15923
15924  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (43)</a></li>
15925
15926  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (16)</a></li>
15927
15928  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (23)</a></li>
15929
15930  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi (4)</a></li>
15931
15932  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
15933
15934  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego (5)</a></li>
15935
15936  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
15937
15938  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/linuxcnc">linuxcnc (4)</a></li>
15939
15940  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
15941
15942  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
15943
15944  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/madewithcc">madewithcc (3)</a></li>
15945
15946  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
15947
15948  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (45)</a></li>
15949
15950  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (14)</a></li>
15951
15952  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/noark5">noark5 (23)</a></li>
15953
15954  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (320)</a></li>
15955
15956  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (198)</a></li>
15957
15958  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (40)</a></li>
15959
15960  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
15961
15962  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (75)</a></li>
15963
15964  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (114)</a></li>
15965
15966  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (2)</a></li>
15967
15968  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
15969
15970  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
15971
15972  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
15973
15974  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (17)</a></li>
15975
15976  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
15977
15978  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (7)</a></li>
15979
15980  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
15981
15982  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (59)</a></li>
15983
15984  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
15985
15986  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (5)</a></li>
15987
15988  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (74)</a></li>
15989
15990  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (7)</a></li>
15991
15992  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (14)</a></li>
15993
15994  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (64)</a></li>
15995
15996  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (5)</a></li>
15997
15998  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
15999
16000  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (9)</a></li>
16001
16002  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/verkidetfri">verkidetfri (20)</a></li>
16003
16004  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (78)</a></li>
16005
16006  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
16007
16008  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (42)</a></li>
16009
16010 </ul>
16011
16012
16013     </div>
16014     <p style="text-align: right">
16015  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
16016 </p>
16017
16018   </body>
16019 </html>