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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/Managing_and_using_ONVIF_IP_cameras_with_Linux.html">Managing and using ONVIF IP cameras with Linux</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         19th October 2022
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>Recently I have been looking at how to control and collect data
  32 from a handful IP cameras using Linux.  I both wanted to change their
  33 settings and to make their imagery available via a free software
  34 service under my control.  Here is a summary of the tools I found.</p>
  35
  36 <p>First I had to identify the cameras and their protocols.  As far as
  37 I could tell, they were using some SOAP looking protocol and their
  38 internal web server seem to only work with Microsoft Internet Explorer
  39 with some proprietary binary plugin, which in these days of course is
  40 a security disaster and also made it impossible for me to use the
  41 camera web interface.  Luckily I discovered that the SOAP looking
  42 protocol is actually following <a href="https://www.onvif.org/">the
  43 ONVIF specification</a>, which seem to be supported by a lot of IP
  44 cameras these days.</p>
  45
  46 <p>Once the protocol was identified, I was able to find what appear to
  47 be the most popular way to configure ONVIF cameras, the free software
  48 Windows tool named
  49 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/onvifdm/">ONVIF Device
  50 Manager</a>.  Lacking any other options at the time, I tried
  51 unsuccessfully to get it running using Wine, but was missing a dotnet
  52 40 library and I found no way around it to run it on Linux.</p>
  53
  54 <p>The next tool I found to configure the cameras were a non-free Linux Qt
  55 client <a href="https://www.lingodigit.com/onvif_nvcdemo.html">ONVIF
  56 Device Tool</a>.  I did not like its terms of use, so did not spend
  57 much time on it.</p>
  58
  59 <p>To collect the video and make it available in a web interface, I
  60 found the Zoneminder tool in Debian.  A recent version was able to
  61 automatically detect and configure ONVIF devices, so I could use it to
  62 set up motion detection in and collection of the camera output.  I had
  63 initial problems getting the ONVIF autodetection to work, as both
  64 Firefox and Chromium <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1001188">refused
  65 the inter-tab communication</a> being used by the Zoneminder web
  66 pages, but managed to get konqueror to work.  Apparently the "Enhanced
  67 Tracking Protection" in Firefox cause the problem.  I ended up
  68 upgrading to the Bookworm edition of Zoneminder in the process to try
  69 to fix the issue, and believe the problem might be solved now.</p>
  70
  71 <p>In the process I came across the nice Linux GUI tool
  72 <a href="https://gitlab.com/caspermeijn/onvifviewer/">ONVIF Viewer</a>
  73 allowing me to preview the camera output and validate the login
  74 passwords required.  Sadly its author has grown tired of maintaining
  75 the software, so it might not see any future updates.  Which is sad,
  76 as the viewer is sightly unstable and the picture tend to lock up.
  77 Note, this lockup might be due to limitations in the cameras and not
  78 the viewer implementation.  I suspect the camera is only able to
  79 provide pictures to one client at the time, and the Zoneminder feed
  80 might interfere with the GUI viewer.  I have
  81 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1000820">asked for the tool to be
  82 included in Debian</a>.</p>
  83
  84 <p>Finally, I found what appear to be very nice Linux free software
  85 replacement for the Windows tool, named
  86 <a href="https://github.com/sr99622/libonvif/">libonvif</a>.  It
  87 provide a C library to talk to ONVIF devices as well as a command line
  88 and GUI tool using the library.  Using the GUI tool I was able to change
  89 the admin passwords and update other settings of the cameras.  I have
  90 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1021980">asked for the package to be
  91 included in Debian</a>.</p>
  92
  93 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
  94 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
  95 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
  96
  97 <p><strong>Update 2022-10-20</strong>: Since my initial publication of
  98 this text, I got several suggestions for more free software Linux
  99 tools.  There is <a href="https://github.com/quatanium/python-onvif">a
 100 ONVIF python library</a> (already
 101 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/824240">requested into Debian</a>) and
 102 <a href="https://github.com/FalkTannhaeuser/python-onvif-zeep">a python 3
 103 fork</a> using a different SOAP dependency.  There is also
 104 <a href="https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/onvif/">support for
 105 ONVIF in Home Assistant</a>, and there is an alternative to Zoneminder
 106 called <a href="https://www.shinobi.video/">Shinobi</a>.  The latter
 107 two are not included in Debian either.  I have not tested any of these
 108 so far.</p>
 109
 110       </div>
 111       <div class="tags">
 112
 113
 114         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>.
 115
 116
 117       </div>
 118     </div>
 119     <div class="padding"></div>
 120
 121     <div class="entry">
 122       <div class="title">
 123         <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>
 124       </div>
 125       <div class="date">
 126         12th September 2022
 127       </div>
 128       <div class="body">
 129         <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>
 130
 131 <p>(The picture is of the previous edition.)</p>
 132
 133 <p>Almost two years after the previous Norwegian Bokmål translation of
 134 the "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
 135 Handbook</a>" was published, a new edition is finally being prepared.  The
 136 english text is updated, and it is time to start working on the
 137 translations.  Around 37 percent of the strings have been updated, one
 138 way or another, and the translations starting from a complete Debian Buster
 139 edition now need to bring their translation up from 63% to 100%.  The
 140 complete book is licensed using a Creative Commons license, and has
 141 been published in several languages over the years.  The translations
 142 are done by volunteers to bring Linux in their native tongue.  The
 143 last time I checked, it complete text was available in English,
 144 Norwegian Bokmål, German, Indonesian, Brazil Portuguese and Spanish.
 145 In addition, work has been started for Arabic (Morocco), Catalan,
 146 Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish,
 147 Dutch, French, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish,
 148 Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish and Vietnamese.</p>
 149
 150 <p>The translation is conducted on
 151 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
 152 hosted weblate project page</a>.  Prospective translators are
 153 recommeded to subscribe to
 154 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
 155 translators mailing list</a> and should also check out
 156 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
 157 contributors</a>.</p>
 158
 159 <p>I am one of the Norwegian Bokmål translators of this book, and we
 160 have just started.  Your contribution is most welcome.</p>
 161
 162 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 163 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 164 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 165
 166       </div>
 167       <div class="tags">
 168
 169
 170         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>.
 171
 172
 173       </div>
 174     </div>
 175     <div class="padding"></div>
 176
 177     <div class="entry">
 178       <div class="title">
 179         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_LinuxCNC_servo_PID_tuning_.html">Automatic LinuxCNC servo PID tuning?</a>
 180       </div>
 181       <div class="date">
 182         16th July 2022
 183       </div>
 184       <div class="body">
 185         <p>While working on a CNC with servo motors controlled by the
 186 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxCNC">LinuxCNC</a>
 187 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller">PID
 188 controller</a>, I recently had to learn how to tune the collection of values
 189 that control such mathematical machinery that a PID controller is.  It
 190 proved to be a lot harder than I hoped, and I still have not succeeded
 191 in getting the Z PID controller to successfully defy gravity, nor X
 192 and Y to move accurately and reliably.  But while climbing up this
 193 rather steep learning curve, I discovered that some motor control
 194 systems are able to tune their PID controllers.  I got the impression
 195 from the documentation that LinuxCNC were not.  This proved to be not
 196 true</p>
 197
 198 <p>The LinuxCNC
 199 <a href="http://linuxcnc.org/docs/html/man/man9/pid.9.html">pid
 200 component</a> is the recommended PID controller to use.  It uses eight
 201 constants <tt>Pgain</tt>, <tt>Igain</tt>, <tt>Dgain</tt>,
 202 <tt>bias</tt>, <tt>FF0</tt>, <tt>FF1</tt>, <tt>FF2</tt> and
 203 <tt>FF3</tt> to calculate the output value based on current and wanted
 204 state, and all of these need to have a sensible value for the
 205 controller to behave properly.  Note, there are even more values
 206 involved, theser are just the most important ones.  In my case I need
 207 the X, Y and Z axes to follow the requested path with little error.
 208 This has proved quite a challenge for someone who have never tuned a
 209 PID controller before, but there is at least some help to be found.
 210
 211 <p>I discovered that included in LinuxCNC was this old PID component
 212 at_pid claiming to have auto tuning capabilities.  Sadly it had been
 213 neglected since 2011, and could not be used as a plug in replacement
 214 for the default pid component.  One would have to rewriting the
 215 LinuxCNC HAL setup to test at_pid.  This was rather sad, when I wanted
 216 to quickly test auto tuning to see if it did a better job than me at
 217 figuring out good P, I and D values to use.</p>
 218
 219 <p>I decided to have a look if the situation could be improved.  This
 220 involved trying to understand the code and history of the pid and
 221 at_pid components.  Apparently they had a common ancestor, as code
 222 structure, comments and variable names were quite close to each other.
 223 Sadly this was not reflected in the git history, making it hard to
 224 figure out what really happened.  My guess is that the author of
 225 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master/src/hal/components/at_pid.c">at_pid.c</a>
 226 took a version of
 227 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master/src/hal/components/pid.c">pid.c</a>,
 228 rewrote it to follow the structure he wished pid.c to have, then added
 229 support for auto tuning and finally got it included into the LinuxCNC
 230 repository.  The restructuring and lack of early history made it
 231 harder to figure out which part of the code were relevant to the auto
 232 tuning, and which part of the code needed to be updated to work the
 233 same way as the current pid.c implementation.  I started by trying to
 234 isolate relevant changes in pid.c, and applying them to at_pid.c.  My
 235 aim was to make sure the at_pid component could replace the pid
 236 component with a simple change in the HAL setup loadrt line, without
 237 having to "rewire" the rest of the HAL configuration.  After a few
 238 hours following this approach, I had learned quite a lot about the
 239 code structure of both components, while concluding I was heading down
 240 the wrong rabbit hole, and should get back to the surface and find a
 241 different path.</p>
 242
 243 <p>For the second attempt, I decided to throw away all the PID control
 244 related part of the original at_pid.c, and instead isolate and lift
 245 the auto tuning part of the code and inject it into a copy of pid.c.
 246 This ensured compatibility with the current pid component, while
 247 adding auto tuning as a run time option.  To make it easier to identify
 248 the relevant parts in the future, I wrapped all the auto tuning code
 249 with '#ifdef AUTO_TUNER'.  The end result behave just like the current
 250 pid component by default, as that part of the code is identical.  The
 251 <a href="https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/pull/1820">end result
 252 entered the LinuxCNC master branch</a> a few days ago.</p>
 253
 254 <p>To enable auto tuning, one need to set a few HAL pins in the PID
 255 component.  The most important ones are <tt>tune-effort</tt>,
 256 <tt>tune-mode</tt> and <tt>tune-start</tt>.  But lets take a step
 257 back, and see what the auto tuning code will do.  I do not know the
 258 mathematical foundation of the at_pid algorithm, but from observation
 259 I can tell that the algorithm will, when enabled, produce a square
 260 wave pattern centered around the <tt>bias</tt> value on the output pin
 261 of the PID controller.  This can be seen using the HAL Scope provided
 262 by LinuxCNC.  In my case, this is translated into voltage (+-10V) sent
 263 to the motor controller, which in turn is translated into motor speed.
 264 So at_pid will ask the motor to move the axis back and forth.  The
 265 number of cycles in the pattern is controlled by the
 266 <tt>tune-cycles</tt> pin, and the extremes of the wave pattern is
 267 controlled by the <tt>tune-effort</tt> pin.  Of course, trying to
 268 change the direction of a physical object instantly (as in going
 269 directly from a positive voltage to the equivalent negative voltage)
 270 do not change velocity instantly, and it take some time for the object
 271 to slow down and move in the opposite direction.  This result in a
 272 more smooth movement wave form, as the axis in question were vibrating
 273 back and forth.  When the axis reached the target speed in the
 274 opposing direction, the auto tuner change direction again.  After
 275 several of these changes, the average time delay between the 'peaks'
 276 and 'valleys' of this movement graph is then used to calculate
 277 proposed values for Pgain, Igain and Dgain, and insert them into the
 278 HAL model to use by the pid controller.  The auto tuned settings are
 279 not great, but htye work a lot better than the values I had been able
 280 to cook up on my own, at least for the horizontal X and Y axis.  But I
 281 had to use very small <tt>tune-effort<tt> values, as my motor
 282 controllers error out if the voltage change too quickly.  I've been
 283 less lucky with the Z axis, which is moving a heavy object up and
 284 down, and seem to confuse the algorithm.  The Z axis movement became a
 285 lot better when I introduced a <tt>bias</tt> value to counter the
 286 gravitational drag, but I will have to work a lot more on the Z axis
 287 PID values.</p>
 288
 289 <p>Armed with this knowledge, it is time to look at how to do the
 290 tuning.  Lets say the HAL configuration in question load the PID
 291 component for X, Y and Z like this:</p>
 292
 293 <blockquote><pre>
 294 loadrt pid names=pid.x,pid.y,pid.z
 295 </pre></blockquote>
 296
 297 <p>Armed with the new and improved at_pid component, the new line will
 298 look like this:</p>
 299
 300 <blockquote><pre>
 301 loadrt at_pid names=pid.x,pid.y,pid.z
 302 </pre></blockquote>
 303
 304 <p>The rest of the HAL setup can stay the same.  This work because the
 305 components are referenced by name.  If the component had used count=3
 306 instead, all use of pid.# had to be changed to at_pid.#.</p>
 307
 308 <p>To start tuning the X axis, move the axis to the middle of its
 309 range, to make sure it do not hit anything when it start moving back
 310 and forth.  Next, set the <tt>tune-effort</tt> to a low number in the
 311 output range.  I used 0.1 as my initial value.  Next, assign 1 to the
 312 <tt>tune-mode</tt> value. Note, this will disable the pid controlling
 313 part and feed 0 to the output pin, which in my case initially caused a
 314 lot of drift.  In my case it proved to be a good idea with X and Y to
 315 tune the motor driver to make sure 0 voltage stopped the motor
 316 rotation.  On the other hand, for the Z axis this proved to be a bad
 317 idea, so it will depend on your setup.  It might help to set the
 318 <tt>bias</tt> value to a output value that reduce or eliminate the
 319 axis drift.  Finally, after setting <tt>tune-mode</tt>, set
 320 <tt>tune-start</tt> to 1 to activate the auto tuning.  If all go well,
 321 your axis will vibrate for a few seconds and when it is done, new
 322 values for Pgain, Igain and Dgain will be active.  To test them,
 323 change <tt>tune-mode</tt> back to 0.  Note that this might cause the
 324 machine to suddenly jerk as it bring the axis back to its commanded
 325 position, which it might have drifted away from during tuning.  To
 326 summarize with some halcmd lines:</p>
 327
 328 <blockquote><pre>
 329 setp pid.x.tune-effort 0.1
 330 setp pid.x.tune-mode 1
 331 setp pid.x.tune-start 1
 332 # wait for the tuning to complete
 333 setp pid.x.tune-mode 0
 334 </pre></blockquote>
 335
 336 <p>After doing this task quite a few times while trying to figure out
 337 how to properly tune the PID controllers on the machine in, I decided
 338 to figure out if this process could be automated, and wrote a script
 339 to do the entire tuning process from power on.  The end result will
 340 ensure the machine is powered on and ready to run, home all axis if it
 341 is not already done, check that the extra tuning pins are available,
 342 move the axis to its mid point, run the auto tuning and re-enable the
 343 pid controller when it is done.  It can be run several times.  Check
 344 out the
 345 <a href="https://github.com/SebKuzminsky/MazakVQC1540/blob/bon-dev/scripts/run-auto-pid-tuner">run-auto-pid-tuner</a>
 346 script on github if you want to learn how it is done.</p>
 347
 348 <p>My hope is that this little adventure can inspire someone who know
 349 more about motor PID controller tuning can implement even better
 350 algorithms for automatic PID tuning in LinuxCNC, making life easier
 351 for both me and all the others that want to use LinuxCNC but lack the
 352 in depth knowledge needed to tune PID controllers well.</p>
 353
 354 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 355 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 356 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 357
 358       </div>
 359       <div class="tags">
 360
 361
 362         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/robot">robot</a>.
 363
 364
 365       </div>
 366     </div>
 367     <div class="padding"></div>
 368
 369     <div class="entry">
 370       <div class="title">
 371         <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>
 372       </div>
 373       <div class="date">
 374          3rd June 2022
 375       </div>
 376       <div class="body">
 377         <p>Back in oktober last year, when I started looking at the
 378 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxCNC">LinuxCNC</a> system, I
 379 proposed to change the documentation build system make life easier for
 380 translators.  The original system consisted of independently written
 381 documentation files for each language, with no automated way to track
 382 changes done in other translations and no help for the translators to
 383 know how much was left to translated.  By using
 384 <a href="https://po4a.org/">the po4a system</a> to generate POT and PO
 385 files from the English documentation, this can be improved.  A small
 386 team of LinuxCNC contributors got together and today our labour
 387 finally payed off.  Since a few hours ago, it is now possible to
 388 translate <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/linuxcnc/">the
 389 LinuxCNC documentation on Weblate</a>, alongside the program itself.</p>
 390
 391 <p>The effort to migrate the documentation to use po4a has been both
 392 slow and frustrating.  I am very happy we finally made it.</p>
 393
 394 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 395 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 396 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 397
 398       </div>
 399       <div class="tags">
 400
 401
 402         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/robot">robot</a>.
 403
 404
 405       </div>
 406     </div>
 407     <div class="padding"></div>
 408
 409     <div class="entry">
 410       <div class="title">
 411         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/geteltorito_make_CD_firmware_upgrades_a_breeze.html">geteltorito make CD firmware upgrades a breeze</a>
 412       </div>
 413       <div class="date">
 414         20th April 2022
 415       </div>
 416       <div class="body">
 417         <p>Recently I wanted to upgrade the firmware of my thinkpad, and
 418 located the firmware download page from Lenovo (which annoyingly do
 419 not allow access via Tor, forcing me to hand them more personal
 420 information that I would like).  The
 421 <a href="https://support.lenovo.com/no/en/search?query=thinkpad firmware bios upgrade iso&SearchType=Customer search&searchLocation=Masthead">download
 422 from Lenovo</a> is a bootable ISO image, which is a bit of a problem
 423 when all I got available is a USB memory stick.  I tried booting the
 424 ISO as a USB stick, but this did not work.  But genisoimage came to
 425 the rescue.</p>
 426
 427 <P>The geteltorito program in
 428 <a href="http://tracker.debian.org/cdrkit">the genisoimage binary
 429 package</a> is able to convert the bootable ISO image to a bootable
 430 USB stick using a simple command line recipe, which I then can write
 431 to the most recently inserted USB stick:</p>
 432
 433 <blockquote><pre>
 434 geteltorito -o usbstick.img lenovo-firmware.iso
 435 sudo dd bs=10M if=usbstick.img of=$(ls -tr /dev/sd?|tail -1)
 436 </pre></blockquote>
 437
 438 <p>This USB stick booted the firmware upgrader just fine, and in a few
 439 minutes my machine had the latest and greatest BIOS firmware in place.</p>
 440
 441       </div>
 442       <div class="tags">
 443
 444
 445         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>.
 446
 447
 448       </div>
 449     </div>
 450     <div class="padding"></div>
 451
 452     <div class="entry">
 453       <div class="title">
 454         <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>
 455       </div>
 456       <div class="date">
 457          2nd March 2022
 458       </div>
 459       <div class="body">
 460         <p>After many months of hard work by the good people involved in
 461 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinuxCNC">LinuxCNC</a>, the
 462 system was accepted Sunday
 463 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/linuxcnc">into Debian</a>.
 464 Once it was available from Debian, I was surprised to discover from
 465 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=linuxcnc">its
 466 popularity-contest numbers</a> that people have been reporting its use
 467 since 2012.  <a href="http://linuxcnc.org/">Its project site</a> might
 468 be a good place to check out, but sadly is not working when visiting
 469 via Tor.</p>
 470
 471 <p>But what is LinuxCNC, you are probably wondering?  Perhaps a
 472 Wikipedia quote is in place?</p>
 473
 474 <blockquote>
 475 "LinuxCNC is a software system for numerical control of
 476 machines such as milling machines, lathes, plasma cutters, routers,
 477 cutting machines, robots and hexapods. It can control up to 9 axes or
 478 joints of a CNC machine using G-code (RS-274NGC) as input. It has
 479 several GUIs suited to specific kinds of usage (touch screen,
 480 interactive development)."
 481 </blockquote>
 482
 483 <p>It can even control 3D printers.  And even though the Wikipedia
 484 page indicate that it can only work with hard real time kernel
 485 features, it can also work with the user space soft real time features
 486 provided by the Debian kernel.
 487 <a href="https://github.com/linuxcnc/linuxcnc">The source code</a> is
 488 available from Github.  The last few months I've been involved in the
 489 translation setup for the program and documentation.  Translators are
 490 most welcome to
 491 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/engage/linuxcnc/">join the
 492 effort</a> using Weblate.</p>
 493
 494 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 495 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 496 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 497
 498       </div>
 499       <div class="tags">
 500
 501
 502         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/robot">robot</a>.
 503
 504
 505       </div>
 506     </div>
 507     <div class="padding"></div>
 508
 509     <div class="entry">
 510       <div class="title">
 511         <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>
 512       </div>
 513       <div class="date">
 514         24th October 2021
 515       </div>
 516       <div class="body">
 517         <p>The Debian Lego team saw a lot of activity the last few weeks.  All
 518 the packages under the team umbrella has been updated to fix
 519 packaging, lintian issues and BTS reports.  In addition, a new and
 520 inspiring team member appeared on both the
 521 <a href="https://alioth-lists.debian.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debian-lego-team">debian-lego-team
 522 Team mailing list</a> and
 523 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC channel
 524 #debian-lego</a>.  If you are interested in Lego CAD design and LEGO
 525 Mindstorms programming, check out the
 526 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">team wiki page</a> to
 527 see what Debian can offer the Lego enthusiast.</p>
 528
 529 <p>Patches has been sent upstream, causing new upstream releases, one
 530 even the first one in more than ten years, and old upstreams was
 531 released with new ones.  There are still a lot of work left, and the
 532 team welcome more members to help us make sure Debian is the Linux
 533 distribution of choice for Lego builders.  If you want to contribute,
 534 join us in the IRC channel and become part of
 535 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/debian-lego-team/">the team on
 536 Salsa</a>.</p>
 537
 538 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 539 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 540 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 541
 542       </div>
 543       <div class="tags">
 544
 545
 546         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>.
 547
 548
 549       </div>
 550     </div>
 551     <div class="padding"></div>
 552
 553     <div class="entry">
 554       <div class="title">
 555         <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>
 556       </div>
 557       <div class="date">
 558          5th July 2021
 559       </div>
 560       <div class="body">
 561         <p>I am happy observe that the <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The
 562 Debian Administrator's Handbook</a> is available in six languages now.
 563 I am not sure which one of these are completely proof read, but the
 564 complete book is available in these languages:
 565
 566 <ul>
 567
 568 <li>English</li>
 569 <li>Norwegian Bokmål</li>
 570 <li>German</li>
 571 <li>Indonesian</li>
 572 <li>Brazil Portuguese</li>
 573 <li>Spanish</li>
 574
 575 </ul>
 576
 577 <p>This is the list of languages more than 70% complete, in other
 578 words with not too much left to do:</p>
 579
 580 <ul>
 581
 582 <li>Chinese (Simplified) - 90%</li>
 583 <li>French - 79%</li>
 584 <li>Italian - 79%</li>
 585 <li>Japanese - 77%</li>
 586 <li>Arabic (Morocco) - 75%</li>
 587 <li>Persian - 71%</li>
 588
 589 </ul>
 590
 591 <p>I wonder how long it will take to bring these to 100%.</p>
 592
 593 <p>Then there is the list of languages about halfway done:</p>
 594
 595 <ul>
 596
 597 <li>Russian - 63%</li>
 598 <li>Swedish - 53%</li>
 599 <li>Chinese (Traditional) - 46%</li>
 600 <li>Catalan - 45%</li>
 601
 602 </ul>
 603
 604 <p>Several are on to a good start:</p>
 605
 606 <ul>
 607
 608 <li>Dutch - 26%</li>
 609 <li>Vietnamese - 25%</li>
 610 <li>Polish - 23%</li>
 611 <li>Czech - 22%</li>
 612 <li>Turkish - 18%</li>
 613
 614 </ul>
 615
 616 <p>Finally, there are the ones just getting started:</p>
 617
 618 <ul>
 619
 620 <li>Korean - 4%</li>
 621 <li>Croatian - 2%</li>
 622 <li>Greek - 2%</li>
 623 <li>Danish - 1%</li>
 624 <li>Romanian - 1%</li>
 625
 626 </ul>
 627
 628 <p>If you want to help provide a Debian instruction book in your own
 629 language, visit
 630 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/#languages">Weblate</a>
 631 to contribute to the translations.</p>
 632
 633 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 634 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 635 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 636
 637       </div>
 638       <div class="tags">
 639
 640
 641         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>.
 642
 643
 644       </div>
 645     </div>
 646     <div class="padding"></div>
 647
 648     <div class="entry">
 649       <div class="title">
 650         <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>
 651       </div>
 652       <div class="date">
 653         12th January 2021
 654       </div>
 655       <div class="body">
 656         <p>After a lot of hard work by its maintainer Alexandre Viau and
 657 others, the decentralized communication platform
 658 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jami_(software)">Jami</a>
 659 (earlier known as Ring), managed to get
 660 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">its latest version</a>
 661 into Debian Testing.  Several of its dependencies has caused build and
 662 propagation problems, which all seem to be solved now.</p>
 663
 664 <p>In addition to the fact that Jami is decentralized, similar to how
 665 bittorrent is decentralized, I first of all like how it is not
 666 connected to external IDs like phone numbers.  This allow me to set up
 667 computers to send me notifications using Jami without having to find
 668 get a phone number for each computer.  Automatic notification via Jami
 669 is also made trivial thanks to the provided client side API (as a DBus
 670 service).  Here is my bourne shell script demonstrating how to let any
 671 system send a message to any Jami address.  It will create a new
 672 identity before sending the message, if no Jami identity exist
 673 already:</p>
 674
 675 <p><pre>
 676 #!/bin/sh
 677 #
 678 # Usage: $0 <jami-address> <message>
 679 #
 680 # Send <message> to <jami-address>, create local jami account if
 681 # missing.
 682 #
 683 # License: GPL v2 or later at your choice
 684 # Author: Petter Reinholdtsen
 685
 686
 687 if [ -z "$HOME" ] ; then
 688     echo "error: missing \$HOME, required for dbus to work"
 689     exit 1
 690 fi
 691
 692 # First, get dbus running if not already running
 693 DBUSLAUNCH=/usr/bin/dbus-launch
 694 PIDFILE=/run/asterisk/dbus-session.pid
 695 if [ -e $PIDFILE ] ; then
 696     . $PIDFILE
 697     if ! kill -0 $DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID 2>/dev/null ; then
 698         unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
 699     fi
 700 fi
 701 if [ -z "$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS" ] && [ -x "$DBUSLAUNCH" ]; then
 702     DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS="unix:path=$HOME/.dbus"
 703     dbus-daemon --session --address="$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS" --nofork --nopidfile --syslog-only < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 3>&1 &
 704     DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID=$!
 705     (
 706         echo DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID=$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID
 707         echo DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=\""$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS"\"
 708         echo export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
 709     ) > $PIDFILE
 710     . $PIDFILE
 711 fi &
 712
 713 dringop() {
 714     part="$1"; shift
 715     op="$1"; shift
 716     dbus-send --session \
 717         --dest="cx.ring.Ring" /cx/ring/Ring/$part cx.ring.Ring.$part.$op $*
 718 }
 719
 720 dringopreply() {
 721     part="$1"; shift
 722     op="$1"; shift
 723     dbus-send --session --print-reply \
 724         --dest="cx.ring.Ring" /cx/ring/Ring/$part cx.ring.Ring.$part.$op $*
 725 }
 726
 727 firstaccount() {
 728     dringopreply ConfigurationManager getAccountList | \
 729       grep string | awk -F'"' '{print $2}' | head -n 1
 730 }
 731
 732 account=$(firstaccount)
 733
 734 if [ -z "$account" ] ; then
 735     echo "Missing local account, trying to create it"
 736     dringop ConfigurationManager addAccount \
 737       dict:string:string:"Account.type","RING","Account.videoEnabled","false"
 738     account=$(firstaccount)
 739     if [ -z "$account" ] ; then
 740         echo "unable to create local account"
 741         exit 1
 742     fi
 743 fi
 744
 745 # Not using dringopreply to ensure $2 can contain spaces
 746 dbus-send --print-reply --session \
 747   --dest=cx.ring.Ring \
 748   /cx/ring/Ring/ConfigurationManager \
 749   cx.ring.Ring.ConfigurationManager.sendTextMessage \
 750   string:"$account" string:"$1" \
 751   dict:string:string:"text/plain","$2"
 752 </pre></p>
 753
 754 <p>If you want to check it out yourself, visit the
 755 <a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami system project page</a> to learn
 756 more, and install the latest Jami client from Debian Unstable or
 757 Testing.</p>
 758
 759 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 760 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 761 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 762
 763       </div>
 764       <div class="tags">
 765
 766
 767         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>.
 768
 769
 770       </div>
 771     </div>
 772     <div class="padding"></div>
 773
 774     <div class="entry">
 775       <div class="title">
 776         <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>
 777       </div>
 778       <div class="date">
 779         20th October 2020
 780       </div>
 781       <div class="body">
 782         <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>
 783
 784 <p>I am happy to report that we finally made it!  Norwegian Bokmål
 785 became the first translation published on paper of the new Buster
 786 based edition of "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian
 787 Administrator's Handbook</a>".  The print proof reading copy arrived
 788 some days ago, and it looked good, so now the book is approved for
 789 general distribution.  This updated paperback edition <a
 790 href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian">is available from
 791 lulu.com</a>.  The book is also available for download in electronic
 792 form as PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket, and can also be
 793 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">read online</a>.</p>
 794
 795 <p>I am very happy to wrap up this Creative Common licensed project,
 796 which concludes several months of work by several volunteers. The
 797 number of Linux related books published in Norwegian are few, and I
 798 really hope this one will gain many readers, as it is packed with deep
 799 knowledge on Linux and the Debian ecosystem.  The book will be
 800 available for various Internet book stores like Amazon and Barnes &
 801 Noble soon, but I recommend buying
 802 "<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
 803 for Debian-administratoren</a>" directly from the source at Lulu.
 804
 805 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 806 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 807 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 808
 809       </div>
 810       <div class="tags">
 811
 812
 813         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>.
 814
 815
 816       </div>
 817     </div>
 818     <div class="padding"></div>
 819
 820     <div class="entry">
 821       <div class="title">
 822         <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>
 823       </div>
 824       <div class="date">
 825         11th September 2020
 826       </div>
 827       <div class="body">
 828         <p>Thanks to the good work of several volunteers, the updated edition
 829 of the Norwegian translation for
 830 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
 831 Handbook</a>" is now almost completed.  After many months of proof
 832 reading, I consider the proof reading complete enough for us to move
 833 to the next step, and have asked for the print version to be prepared
 834 and sent of to the print on demand service lulu.com.  While it is
 835 still not to late if you find any incorrect translations on
 836 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/languages/nb_NO/debian-handbook/">the
 837 hosted Weblate service</a>, but it will be soon. :) You can check out
 838 <a href=" https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">the Buster
 839 edition on the web</a> until the print edition is ready.</p>
 840
 841 <p>The book will be for sale on lulu.com and various web book stores,
 842 with links available from the web site for the book linked to above.
 843 I hope a lot of readers find it useful.</p>
 844
 845 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 846 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 847 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 848
 849       </div>
 850       <div class="tags">
 851
 852
 853         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>.
 854
 855
 856       </div>
 857     </div>
 858     <div class="padding"></div>
 859
 860     <div class="entry">
 861       <div class="title">
 862         <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>
 863       </div>
 864       <div class="date">
 865          4th July 2020
 866       </div>
 867       <div class="body">
 868         <p>Three years ago, the first Norwegian Bokmål edition of
 869 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
 870 Handbook</a>" was published.  This was based on Debian Jessie.  Now a
 871 new and updated version based on Buster is getting ready.  Work on the
 872 updated Norwegian Bokmål edition has been going on for a few months
 873 now, and yesterday, we reached the first mile stone, with 100% of the
 874 texts being translated.  A lot of proof reading remains, of course,
 875 but a major step towards a new edition has been taken.</p>
 876
 877 <p>The book is translated by volunteers, and we would love to get some
 878 help with the proof reading.  The translation uses
 879 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/languages/nb_NO/debian-handbook/">the
 880 hosted Weblate service</a>, and we welcome everyone to have a look and
 881 submit improvements and suggestions.  There is also a proof readers
 882 PDF available on request, get in touch if you want to help out that
 883 way.</p>
 884
 885 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 886 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 887 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 888
 889       </div>
 890       <div class="tags">
 891
 892
 893         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>.
 894
 895
 896       </div>
 897     </div>
 898     <div class="padding"></div>
 899
 900     <div class="entry">
 901       <div class="title">
 902         <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>
 903       </div>
 904       <div class="date">
 905          6th June 2020
 906       </div>
 907       <div class="body">
 908         <p>As a member of the <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix
 909 User Group</a>, I have the pleasure of receiving the
 910 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a> magazine
 911 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/">;login:</a>
 912 several times a year.  I rarely have time to read all the articles,
 913 but try to at least skim through them all as there is a lot of nice
 914 knowledge passed on there.  I even carry the latest issue with me most
 915 of the time to try to get through all the articles when I have a few
 916 spare minutes.</p>
 917
 918 <p>The other day I came across a nice article titled
 919 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/winter2018/oneill">The
 920 Secure Socket API: TLS as an Operating System Service</a>" with a
 921 marvellous idea I hope can make it all the way into the POSIX standard.
 922 The idea is as simple as it is powerful.  By introducing a new
 923 socket() option IPPROTO_TLS to use TLS, and a system wide service to
 924 handle setting up TLS connections, one both make it trivial to add TLS
 925 support to any program currently using the POSIX socket API, and gain
 926 system wide control over certificates, TLS versions and encryption
 927 systems used.  Instead of doing this:</p>
 928
 929 <p><blockquote><pre>
 930 int socket = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
 931 </pre></blockquote></p>
 932
 933 <p>the program code would be doing this:<p>
 934
 935 <p><blockquote><pre>
 936 int socket = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TLS);
 937 </pre></blockquote></p>
 938
 939 <p>According to the ;login: article, converting a C program to use TLS
 940 would normally modify only 5-10 lines in the code, which is amazing
 941 when compared to using for example the OpenSSL API.</p>
 942
 943 <p>The project has set up the
 944 <a href="https://securesocketapi.org/">https://securesocketapi.org/</a>
 945 web site to spread the idea, and the code for a kernel module and the
 946 associated system daemon is available from two github repositories:
 947 <a href="https://github.com/markoneill/ssa">ssa</a> and
 948 <a href="https://github.com/markoneill/ssa-daemon">ssa-daemon</a>.
 949 Unfortunately there is no explicit license information with the code,
 950 so its copyright status is unclear.  A
 951 <a href="https://github.com/markoneill/ssa/issues/2">request to solve
 952 this</a> about it has been unsolved since 2018-08-17.</p>
 953
 954 <p>I love the idea of extending socket() to gain TLS support, and
 955 understand why it is an advantage to implement this as a kernel module
 956 and system wide service daemon, but can not help to think that it
 957 would be a lot easier to get projects to move to this way of setting
 958 up TLS if it was done with a user space approach where programs
 959 wanting to use this API approach could just link with a wrapper
 960 library.</p>
 961
 962 <p>I recommend you check out this simple and powerful approach to more
 963 secure network connections. :)</p>
 964
 965 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 966 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 967 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 968
 969       </div>
 970       <div class="tags">
 971
 972
 973         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>.
 974
 975
 976       </div>
 977     </div>
 978     <div class="padding"></div>
 979
 980     <div class="entry">
 981       <div class="title">
 982         <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>
 983       </div>
 984       <div class="date">
 985          8th May 2020
 986       </div>
 987       <div class="body">
 988         <p>Half a year ago,
 989 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jami_Ring__finally_functioning_peer_to_peer_communication_client.html">I
 990 wrote</a> about <a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami communication
 991 client</a>, capable of peer-to-peer encrypted communication.  It
 992 handle both messages, audio and video.  It uses distributed hash
 993 tables instead of central infrastructure to connect its users to each
 994 other, which in my book is a plus.  I mentioned briefly that it could
 995 also work as a SIP client, which came in handy when the higher
 996 educational sector in Norway started to promote Zoom as its video
 997 conferencing solution.  I am reluctant to use the official Zoom client
 998 software, due to their <a href="https://zoom.us/terms">copyright
 999 license clauses</a> prohibiting users to reverse engineer (for example
1000 to check the security) and benchmark it, and thus prefer to connect to
1001 Zoom meetings with free software clients.</p>
1002
1003 <p>Jami worked OK as a SIP client to Zoom as long as there was no
1004 password set on the room.  The Jami daemon leak memory like crazy
1005 (approximately 1 GiB a minute) when I am connected to the video
1006 conference, so I had to restart the client every 7-10 minutes, which
1007 is not great.  I tried to get other SIP Linux clients to work
1008 without success, so I decided I would have to live with this wart
1009 until someone managed to fix the leak in the dring code base.  But
1010 another problem showed up once the rooms were password protected.  I
1011 could not get my dial tone signaling through from Jami to Zoom, and
1012 dial tone signaling is used to enter the password when connecting to
1013 Zoom.  I tried a lot of different permutations with my Jami and
1014 Asterisk setup to try to figure out why the signaling did not get
1015 through, only to finally discover that the fundamental problem seem to
1016 be that Zoom is simply not able to receive dial tone signaling when
1017 connecting via SIP.  There seem to be nothing wrong with the Jami and
1018 Asterisk end, it is simply broken in the Zoom end.  I got help from a
1019 very skilled VoIP engineer figuring out this last part.  And being a
1020 very skilled engineer, he was also able to locate a solution for me.
1021 Or to be exact, a workaround that solve my initial problem of
1022 connecting to password protected Zoom rooms using Jami.</p>
1023
1024 <p>So, how do you do this, I am sure you are wondering by now.  The
1025 trick is already
1026 <a href="https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/202405539-H-323-SIP-Room-Connector-Dial-Strings#sip">documented
1027 from Zoom</a>, and it is to modify the SIP address to include the room
1028 password.  What is most surprising about this is that the
1029 automatically generated email from Zoom with instructions on how to
1030 connect via SIP do not mention this.  The SIP address to use normally
1031 consist of the room ID (a number), an @ character and the IP address
1032 of the Zoom SIP gateway.  But Zoom understand a lot more than just the
1033 room ID in front of the at sign.  The format is "<tt>[Meeting
1034 ID].[Password].[Layout].[Host Key]</tt>", and you can here see how you
1035 can both enter password, control the layout (full screen, active
1036 presence and gallery) and specify the host key to start the meeting.
1037 The full SIP address entered into Jami to provide the password will
1038 then look like this (all using made up numbers):</p>
1039
1040 <p><blockquote>
1041 <tt>sip:657837644.522827@192.168.169.170</tt>
1042 </blockquote></p>
1043
1044 <p>Now if only jami would reduce its memory usage, I could even
1045 recommend this setup to others. :)</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/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>.
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/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>
1065       </div>
1066       <div class="date">
1067         29th April 2020
1068       </div>
1069       <div class="body">
1070         <p>The curiosity got the better of me when
1071 <a href="https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/04/06/1424246/new-jersey-desperately-needs-cobol-programmers">Slashdot
1072 reported</a> that New Jersey was desperately looking for
1073 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL">COBOL</a> programmers,
1074 and a few days later it was reported that
1075 <a href="https://onezero.medium.com/ibm-rallies-cobol-engineers-to-save-overloaded-unemployment-systems-eeadf13eddce">IBM
1076 tried to locate COBOL programmers</a>.</p>
1077
1078 <p>I thus decided to have a look at free software alternatives to
1079 learn COBOL, and had the pleasure to find
1080 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/open-cobol/">GnuCOBOL</a> was
1081 already <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gnucobol">in
1082 Debian</a>.  It used to be called Open Cobol, and is a "compiler"
1083 transforming COBOL code to C or C++ before giving it to GCC or Visual
1084 Studio to build binaries.</p>
1085
1086 <p>I managed to get in touch with upstream, and was impressed with the
1087 quick response, and also was happy to see a new Debian maintainer
1088 taking over when the original one recently asked to be replaced.  A
1089 new Debian upload was done as recently as yesterday.</p>
1090
1091 <p>Using the Debian package, I was able to follow a simple COBOL
1092 introduction and make and run simple COBOL programs.  It was fun to
1093 learn a new programming language.  If you want to test for yourself,
1094 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuCOBOL">the GnuCOBOL Wikipedia
1095 page</a> have a few simple examples to get you startet.</p>
1096
1097 <p>As I do not have much experience with COBOL, I do not know how
1098 standard compliant it is, but it claim to pass most tests from COBOL
1099 test suite, which sound good to me.  It is nice to know it is possible
1100 to learn COBOL using software without any usage restrictions, and I am
1101 very happy such nice free software project as this is available.  If
1102 you as me is curious about COBOL, check it out.</p>
1103
1104 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1105 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1106 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1107
1108       </div>
1109       <div class="tags">
1110
1111
1112         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>.
1113
1114
1115       </div>
1116     </div>
1117     <div class="padding"></div>
1118
1119     <div class="entry">
1120       <div class="title">
1121         <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>
1122       </div>
1123       <div class="date">
1124         19th June 2019
1125       </div>
1126       <div class="body">
1127         <p>Some years ago, in 2016, I
1128 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">wrote
1129 for the first time about</a> the Ring peer to peer messaging system.
1130 It would provide messaging without any central server coordinating the
1131 system and without requiring all users to register a phone number or
1132 own a mobile phone.  Back then, I could not get it to work, and put it
1133 aside until it had seen more development.  A few days ago I decided to
1134 give it another try, and am happy to report that this time I am able
1135 to not only send and receive messages, but also place audio and video
1136 calls.  But only if UDP is not blocked into your network.</p>
1137
1138 <p>The Ring system changed name earlier this year to
1139 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jami_(software)">Jami</a>.  I
1140 tried doing web search for 'ring' when I discovered it for the first
1141 time, and can only applaud this change as it is impossible to find
1142 something called Ring among the noise of other uses of that word.  Now
1143 you can search for 'jami' and this client and
1144 <a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami system</a> is the first hit at
1145 least on duckduckgo.</p>
1146
1147 <p>Jami will by default encrypt messages as well as audio and video
1148 calls, and try to send them directly between the communicating parties
1149 if possible.  If this proves impossible (for example if both ends are
1150 behind NAT), it will use a central SIP TURN server maintained by the
1151 Jami project.  Jami can also be a normal SIP client.  If the SIP
1152 server is unencrypted, the audio and video calls will also be
1153 unencrypted.  This is as far as I know the only case where Jami will
1154 do anything without encryption.</p>
1155
1156 <p>Jami is available for several platforms: Linux, Windows, MacOSX,
1157 Android, iOS, and Android TV.  It is included in Debian already.  Jami
1158 also work for those using F-Droid without any Google connections,
1159 while Signal do not.
1160 <a href="https://git.jami.net/savoirfairelinux/ring-project/wikis/technical/Protocol">The
1161 protocol</a> is described in the Ring project wiki.  The system uses a
1162 distributed hash table (DHT) system (similar to BitTorrent) running
1163 over UDP.  On one of the networks I use, I discovered Jami failed to
1164 work.  I tracked this down to the fact that incoming UDP packages
1165 going to ports 1-49999 were blocked, and the DHT would pick a random
1166 port and end up in the low range most of the time.  After talking to
1167 the developers, I solved this by enabling the dhtproxy in the
1168 settings, thus using TCP to talk to a central DHT proxy instead of
1169
1170 peering directly with others.  I've been told the developers are
1171 working on allowing DHT to use TCP to avoid this problem.  I also ran
1172 into a problem when trying to talk to the version of Ring included in
1173 Debian Stable (Stretch).  Apparently the protocol changed between
1174 beta2 and the current version, making these clients incompatible.
1175 Hopefully the protocol will not be made incompatible in the
1176 future.</p>
1177
1178 <p>It is worth noting that while looking at Jami and its features, I
1179 came across another communication platform I have not tested yet.  The
1180 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tox_(protocol)">Tox protocol</a>
1181 and <a href="https://tox.chat/">family of Tox clients</a>.  It might
1182 become the topic of a future blog post.</p>
1183
1184 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1185 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1186 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1187
1188       </div>
1189       <div class="tags">
1190
1191
1192         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>.
1193
1194
1195       </div>
1196     </div>
1197     <div class="padding"></div>
1198
1199     <div class="entry">
1200       <div class="title">
1201         <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>
1202       </div>
1203       <div class="date">
1204         23rd January 2019
1205       </div>
1206       <div class="body">
1207         <p>I høst ble jeg inspirert til å bidra til oversettelsen av
1208 <a href="http://unknown-horizons.org/">strategispillet Unknown
1209 Horizons</a>, og oversatte de nesten 200 strengene i prosjektet til
1210 bokmål.  Deretter har jeg gått å ventet på at det kom en ny utgave som
1211 inneholdt disse oversettelsene.  Nå er endelig ventetiden over.  Den
1212 nye versjonen kom på nyåret, og ble
1213 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/unknown-horizons">lastet opp i
1214 Debian</a> for noen få dager siden.  I går kveld fikk jeg testet det ut, og
1215 må innrømme at oversettelsene fungerer fint.  Fant noen få tekster som
1216 måtte justeres, men ikke noe alvorlig.  Har oppdatert
1217 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/uh/">oversettelsen på
1218 Weblate</a>, slik at neste utgave vil være enda bedre. :)</p>
1219
1220 <p>Spillet er et ressursstyringsspill ala Civilization, og er morsomt
1221 å spille for oss som liker slikt. :)</p>
1222
1223 <p>Som vanlig, hvis du bruker Bitcoin og ønsker å vise din støtte til
1224 det jeg driver med, setter jeg pris på om du sender Bitcoin-donasjoner
1225 til min adresse
1226 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.
1227 Merk, betaling med bitcoin er ikke anonymt. :)</p>
1228
1229       </div>
1230       <div class="tags">
1231
1232
1233         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>.
1234
1235
1236       </div>
1237     </div>
1238     <div class="padding"></div>
1239
1240     <div class="entry">
1241       <div class="title">
1242         <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>
1243       </div>
1244       <div class="date">
1245         22nd January 2019
1246       </div>
1247       <div class="body">
1248         <p>I am amazed and very pleased to discover that since a few days ago,
1249 everything you need to program the <a href="https://microbit.org/">BBC
1250 micro:bit</a> is available from the Debian archive.  All this is
1251 thanks to the hard work of Nick Morrott and the Debian python
1252 packaging team.  The micro:bit project recommend the mu-editor to
1253 program the microcomputer, as this editor will take care of all the
1254 machinery required to injekt/flash micropython alongside the program
1255 into the micro:bit, as long as the pieces are available.</p>
1256
1257 <p>There are three main pieces involved.  The first to enter Debian
1258 was
1259 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/python-uflash">python-uflash</a>,
1260 which was accepted into the archive 2019-01-12.  The next one was
1261 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/mu-editor">mu-editor</a>, which
1262 showed up 2019-01-13.  The final and hardest part to to into the
1263 archive was
1264 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/firmware-microbit-micropython">firmware-microbit-micropython</a>,
1265 which needed to get its build system and dependencies into Debian
1266 before it was accepted 2019-01-20.  The last one is already in Debian
1267 Unstable and should enter Debian Testing / Buster in three days.  This
1268 all allow any user of the micro:bit to get going by simply running
1269 'apt install mu-editor' when using Testing or Unstable, and once
1270 Buster is released as stable, all the users of Debian stable will be
1271 catered for.</p>
1272
1273 <p>As a minor final touch, I added rules to
1274 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">the isenkram
1275 package</a> for recognizing micro:bit and recommend the mu-editor
1276 package.  This make sure any user of the isenkram desktop daemon will
1277 get a popup suggesting to install mu-editor then the USB cable from
1278 the micro:bit is inserted for the first time.</p>
1279
1280 <p>This should make it easier to have fun.</p>
1281
1282 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1283 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1284 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1285
1286       </div>
1287       <div class="tags">
1288
1289
1290         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>.
1291
1292
1293       </div>
1294     </div>
1295     <div class="padding"></div>
1296
1297     <div class="entry">
1298       <div class="title">
1299         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Learn_to_program_with_Minetest_on_Debian.html">Learn to program with Minetest on Debian</a>
1300       </div>
1301       <div class="date">
1302         15th December 2018
1303       </div>
1304       <div class="body">
1305         <p>A fun way to learn how to program
1306 <a href="https://www.python.org/">Python</a> is to follow the
1307 instructions in the book
1308 "<a href="https://nostarch.com/programwithminecraft">Learn to program
1309 with Minecraft</a>", which introduces programming in Python to people
1310 who like to play with Minecraft.  The book uses a Python library to
1311 talk to a TCP/IP socket with an API accepting build instructions and
1312 providing information about the current players in a Minecraft world.
1313 The TCP/IP API was first created for the Minecraft implementation for
1314 Raspberry Pi, and has since been ported to some server versions of
1315 Minecraft.  The book contain recipes for those using Windows, MacOSX
1316 and Raspian.  But a little known fact is that you can follow the same
1317 recipes using the free software construction game
1318 <a href="https://minetest.net/">Minetest</a>.</p>
1319
1320 <p>There is <a href="https://github.com/sprintingkiwi/pycraft_mod">a
1321 Minetest module implementing the same API</a>, making it possible to
1322 use the Python programs coded to talk to Minecraft with Minetest too.
1323 I
1324 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new/minetest-mod-pycraft_0.20%2Bgit20180331.0376a0a%2Bdfsg-1.html">uploaded
1325 this module</a> to Debian two weeks ago, and as soon as it clears the
1326 FTP masters NEW queue, learning to program Python with Minetest on
1327 Debian will be a simple 'apt install' away.  The Debian package is
1328 maintained as part of the Debian Games team, and
1329 <a href="https://salsa.debian.org/games-team/unfinished/minetest-mod-pycraft">the
1330 packaging rules</a> are currently located under 'unfinished' on
1331 Salsa.</p>
1332
1333 <p>You will most likely need to install several of the Minetest
1334 modules in Debian for the examples included with the library to work
1335 well, as there are several blocks used by the example scripts that are
1336 provided via modules in Minetest.  Without the required blocks, a
1337 simple stone block is used instead.  My initial testing with a analog
1338 clock did not get gold arms as instructed in the python library, but
1339 instead used stone arms.</p>
1340
1341 <p>I tried to find a way to add the API to the desktop version of
1342 Minecraft, but were unable to find any working recipes.  The
1343 <a href="https://www.epiphanydigest.com/tag/minecraft-python-api/">recipes</a>
1344 I <a href="https://github.com/kbsriram/mcpiapi">found</a> are only
1345 working with a standalone Minecraft server setup.  Are there any
1346 options to use with the normal desktop version?</p>
1347
1348 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1349 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1350 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1351
1352       </div>
1353       <div class="tags">
1354
1355
1356         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>.
1357
1358
1359       </div>
1360     </div>
1361     <div class="padding"></div>
1362
1363     <div class="entry">
1364       <div class="title">
1365         <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>
1366       </div>
1367       <div class="date">
1368          1st November 2018
1369       </div>
1370       <div class="body">
1371         <p>As part of my involvement in
1372 <a href="https://gitlab.com/OsloMet-ABI/nikita-noark5-core">the Nikita
1373 archive API project</a>, I've been importing a fairly large lump of
1374 emails into a test instance of the archive to see how well this would
1375 go.  I picked a subset of <a href="https://notmuchmail.org/">my
1376 notmuch email database</a>, all public emails sent to me via
1377 @lists.debian.org, giving me a set of around 216 000 emails to import.
1378 In the process, I had a look at the various attachments included in
1379 these emails, to figure out what to do with attachments, and noticed
1380 that one of the most common attachment formats do not have
1381 <a href="https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">an
1382 official MIME type</a> registered with IANA/IETF.  The output from
1383 diff, ie the input for patch, is on the top 10 list of formats
1384 included in these emails.  At the moment people seem to use either
1385 text/x-patch or text/x-diff, but neither is officially registered.  It
1386 would be better if one official MIME type were registered and used
1387 everywhere.</p>
1388
1389 <p>To try to get one official MIME type for these files, I've brought
1390 up the topic on
1391 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/media-types">the
1392 media-types mailing list</a>.  If you are interested in discussion
1393 which MIME type to use as the official for patch files, or involved in
1394 making software using a MIME type for patches, perhaps you would like
1395 to join the discussion?</p>
1396
1397 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1398 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1399 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1400
1401       </div>
1402       <div class="tags">
1403
1404
1405         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>.
1406
1407
1408       </div>
1409     </div>
1410     <div class="padding"></div>
1411
1412     <div class="entry">
1413       <div class="title">
1414         <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>
1415       </div>
1416       <div class="date">
1417          4th October 2018
1418       </div>
1419       <div class="body">
1420         <p>A few days, I rescued a Windows victim over to Debian.  To try to
1421 rescue the remains, I helped set up automatic sync with Google Drive.
1422 I did not find any sensible Debian package handling this
1423 automatically, so I rebuild the grive2 source from
1424 <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/">the Ubuntu UPD8 PPA</a> to do the
1425 task and added a autostart desktop entry and a small shell script to
1426 run in the background while the user is logged in to do the sync.
1427 Here is a sketch of the setup for future reference.</p>
1428
1429 <p>I first created <tt>~/googledrive</tt>, entered the directory and
1430 ran '<tt>grive -a</tt>' to authenticate the machine/user.  Next, I
1431 created a autostart hook in <tt>~/.config/autostart/grive.desktop</tt>
1432 to start the sync when the user log in:</p>
1433
1434 <p><blockquote><pre>
1435 [Desktop Entry]
1436 Name=Google drive autosync
1437 Type=Application
1438 Exec=/home/user/bin/grive-sync
1439 </pre></blockquote></p>
1440
1441 <p>Finally, I wrote the <tt>~/bin/grive-sync</tt> script to sync
1442 ~/googledrive/ with the files in Google Drive.</p>
1443
1444 <p><blockquote><pre>
1445 #!/bin/sh
1446 set -e
1447 cd ~/
1448 cleanup() {
1449     if [ "$syncpid" ] ; then
1450         kill $syncpid
1451     fi
1452 }
1453 trap cleanup EXIT INT QUIT
1454 /usr/lib/grive/grive-sync.sh listen googledrive 2>&1 | sed "s%^%$0:%" &
1455 syncpdi=$!
1456 while true; do
1457     if ! xhost >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
1458         echo "no DISPLAY, exiting as the user probably logged out"
1459         exit 1
1460     fi
1461     if [ ! -e /run/user/1000/grive-sync.sh_googledrive ] ; then
1462         /usr/lib/grive/grive-sync.sh sync googledrive
1463     fi
1464     sleep 300
1465 done 2>&1 | sed "s%^%$0:%"
1466 </pre></blockquote></p>
1467
1468 <p>Feel free to use the setup if you want.  It can be assumed to be
1469 GNU GPL v2 licensed (or any later version, at your leisure), but I
1470 doubt this code is possible to claim copyright on.</p>
1471
1472 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1473 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1474 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1475
1476       </div>
1477       <div class="tags">
1478
1479
1480         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>.
1481
1482
1483       </div>
1484     </div>
1485     <div class="padding"></div>
1486
1487     <div class="entry">
1488       <div class="title">
1489         <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>
1490       </div>
1491       <div class="date">
1492          2nd September 2018
1493       </div>
1494       <div class="body">
1495         <p>I continue to explore my Kodi installation, and today I wanted to
1496 tell it to play a youtube URL I received in a chat, without having to
1497 insert search terms using the on-screen keyboard.  After searching the
1498 web for API access to the Youtube plugin and testing a bit, I managed
1499 to find a recipe that worked.  If you got a kodi instance with its API
1500 available from http://kodihost/jsonrpc, you can try the following to
1501 have check out a nice cover band.</p>
1502
1503 <p><blockquote><pre>curl --silent --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
1504   --data-binary '{ "id": 1, "jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "Player.Open",
1505   "params": {"item": { "file":
1506   "plugin://plugin.video.youtube/play/?video_id=LuRGVM9O0qg" } } }' \
1507   http://projector.local/jsonrpc</pre></blockquote></p>
1508
1509 <p>I've extended kodi-stream program to take a video source as its
1510 first argument.  It can now handle direct video links, youtube links
1511 and 'desktop' to stream my desktop to Kodi.  It is almost like a
1512 Chromecast. :)</p>
1513
1514 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1515 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1516 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1517
1518       </div>
1519       <div class="tags">
1520
1521
1522         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>.
1523
1524
1525       </div>
1526     </div>
1527     <div class="padding"></div>
1528
1529     <div class="entry">
1530       <div class="title">
1531         <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>
1532       </div>
1533       <div class="date">
1534         31st July 2018
1535       </div>
1536       <div class="body">
1537         <p>For a while now, I have looked for a sensible way to share images
1538 with my family using a self hosted solution, as it is unacceptable to
1539 place images from my personal life under the control of strangers
1540 working for data hoarders like Google or Dropbox.  The last few days I
1541 have drafted an approach that might work out, and I would like to
1542 share it with you.  I would like to publish images on a server under
1543 my control, and point some Internet connected display units using some
1544 free and open standard to the images I published.  As my primary
1545 language is not limited to ASCII, I need to store metadata using
1546 UTF-8.  Many years ago, I hoped to find a digital photo frame capable
1547 of reading a RSS feed with image references (aka using the
1548 &lt;enclosure&gt; RSS tag), but was unable to find a current supplier
1549 of such frames.  In the end I gave up that approach.</p>
1550
1551 <p>Some months ago, I discovered that
1552 <a href="https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/">XScreensaver</a> is able to
1553 read images from a RSS feed, and used it to set up a screen saver on
1554 my home info screen, showing images from the Daily images feed from
1555 NASA.  This proved to work well.  More recently I discovered that
1556 <a href="https://kodi.tv">Kodi</a> (both using
1557 <a href="https://www.openelec.tv/">OpenELEC</a> and
1558 <a href="https://libreelec.tv">LibreELEC</a>) provide the
1559 <a href="https://github.com/grinsted/script.screensaver.feedreader">Feedreader</a>
1560 screen saver capable of reading a RSS feed with images and news.  For
1561 fun, I used it this summer to test Kodi on my parents TV by hooking up
1562 a Raspberry PI unit with LibreELEC, and wanted to provide them with a
1563 screen saver showing selected pictures from my selection.</p>
1564
1565 <p>Armed with motivation and a test photo frame, I set out to generate
1566 a RSS feed for the Kodi instance.  I adjusted my <a
1567 href="https://freedombox.org/">Freedombox</a> instance, created
1568 /var/www/html/privatepictures/, wrote a small Perl script to extract
1569 title and description metadata from the photo files and generate the
1570 RSS file.  I ended up using Perl instead of python, as the
1571 libimage-exiftool-perl Debian package seemed to handle the EXIF/XMP
1572 tags I ended up using, while python3-exif did not.  The relevant EXIF
1573 tags only support ASCII, so I had to find better alternatives.  XMP
1574 seem to have the support I need.</p>
1575
1576 <p>I am a bit unsure which EXIF/XMP tags to use, as I would like to
1577 use tags that can be easily added/updated using normal free software
1578 photo managing software.  I ended up using the tags set using this
1579 exiftool command, as these tags can also be set using digiKam:</p>
1580
1581 <blockquote><pre>
1582 exiftool -headline='The RSS image title' \
1583   -description='The RSS image description.' \
1584   -subject+=for-family photo.jpeg
1585 </pre></blockquote>
1586
1587 <p>I initially tried the "-title" and "keyword" tags, but they were
1588 invisible in digiKam, so I changed to "-headline" and "-subject".  I
1589 use the keyword/subject 'for-family' to flag that the photo should be
1590 shared with my family.  Images with this keyword set are located and
1591 copied into my Freedombox for the RSS generating script to find.</p>
1592
1593 <p>Are there better ways to do this?  Get in touch if you have better
1594 suggestions.</p>
1595
1596 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1597 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1598 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1599
1600       </div>
1601       <div class="tags">
1602
1603
1604         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>.
1605
1606
1607       </div>
1608     </div>
1609     <div class="padding"></div>
1610
1611     <div class="entry">
1612       <div class="title">
1613         <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>
1614       </div>
1615       <div class="date">
1616         12th July 2018
1617       </div>
1618       <div class="body">
1619         <p>Last night, I wrote
1620 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html">a
1621 recipe to stream a Linux desktop using VLC to a instance of Kodi</a>.
1622 During the day I received valuable feedback, and thanks to the
1623 suggestions I have been able to rewrite the recipe into a much simpler
1624 approach requiring no setup at all.  It is a single script that take
1625 care of it all.</p>
1626
1627 <p>This new script uses GStreamer instead of VLC to capture the
1628 desktop and stream it to Kodi.  This fixed the video quality issue I
1629 saw initially.  It further removes the need to add a m3u file on the
1630 Kodi machine, as it instead connects to
1631 <a href="https://kodi.wiki/view/JSON-RPC_API/v8">the JSON-RPC API in
1632 Kodi</a> and simply ask Kodi to play from the stream created using
1633 GStreamer.  Streaming the desktop to Kodi now become trivial.  Copy
1634 the script below, run it with the DNS name or IP address of the kodi
1635 server to stream to as the only argument, and watch your screen show
1636 up on the Kodi screen.  Note, it depend on multicast on the local
1637 network, so if you need to stream outside the local network, the
1638 script must be modified.  Also note, I have no idea if audio work, as
1639 I only care about the picture part.</p>
1640
1641 <blockquote><pre>
1642 #!/bin/sh
1643 #
1644 # Stream the Linux desktop view to Kodi.  See
1645 # http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_VLC_and_RTSP.html
1646 # for backgorund information.
1647
1648 # Make sure the stream is stopped in Kodi and the gstreamer process is
1649 # killed if something go wrong (for example if curl is unable to find the
1650 # kodi server).  Do the same when interrupting this script.
1651 kodicmd() {
1652     host="$1"
1653     cmd="$2"
1654     params="$3"
1655     curl --silent --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
1656          --data-binary "{ \"id\": 1, \"jsonrpc\": \"2.0\", \"method\": \"$cmd\", \"params\": $params }" \
1657          "http://$host/jsonrpc"
1658 }
1659 cleanup() {
1660     if [ -n "$kodihost" ] ; then
1661         # Stop the playing when we end
1662         playerid=$(kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.GetActivePlayers "{}" |
1663                             jq .result[].playerid)
1664         kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.Stop "{ \"playerid\" : $playerid }" > /dev/null
1665     fi
1666     if [ "$gstpid" ] && kill -0 "$gstpid" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
1667         kill "$gstpid"
1668     fi
1669 }
1670 trap cleanup EXIT INT
1671
1672 if [ -n "$1" ]; then
1673     kodihost=$1
1674     shift
1675 else
1676     kodihost=kodi.local
1677 fi
1678
1679 mcast=239.255.0.1
1680 mcastport=1234
1681 mcastttl=1
1682
1683 pasrc=$(pactl list | grep -A2 'Source #' | grep 'Name: .*\.monitor$' | \
1684   cut -d" " -f2|head -1)
1685 gst-launch-1.0 ximagesrc use-damage=0 ! video/x-raw,framerate=30/1 ! \
1686   videoconvert ! queue2 ! \
1687   x264enc bitrate=8000 speed-preset=superfast tune=zerolatency qp-min=30 \
1688   key-int-max=15 bframes=2 ! video/x-h264,profile=high ! queue2 ! \
1689   mpegtsmux alignment=7 name=mux ! rndbuffersize max=1316 min=1316 ! \
1690   udpsink host=$mcast port=$mcastport ttl-mc=$mcastttl auto-multicast=1 sync=0 \
1691   pulsesrc device=$pasrc ! audioconvert ! queue2 ! avenc_aac ! queue2 ! mux. \
1692   > /dev/null 2>&1 &
1693 gstpid=$!
1694
1695 # Give stream a second to get going
1696 sleep 1
1697
1698 # Ask kodi to start streaming using its JSON-RPC API
1699 kodicmd "$kodihost" Player.Open \
1700         "{\"item\": { \"file\": \"udp://@$mcast:$mcastport\" } }" > /dev/null
1701
1702 # wait for gst to end
1703 wait "$gstpid"
1704 </pre></blockquote>
1705
1706 <p>I hope you find the approach useful.  I know I do.</p>
1707
1708 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1709 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1710 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1711
1712       </div>
1713       <div class="tags">
1714
1715
1716         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>.
1717
1718
1719       </div>
1720     </div>
1721     <div class="padding"></div>
1722
1723     <div class="entry">
1724       <div class="title">
1725         <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>
1726       </div>
1727       <div class="date">
1728         12th July 2018
1729       </div>
1730       <div class="body">
1731         <p>PS: See
1732 <ahref="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simple_streaming_the_Linux_desktop_to_Kodi_using_GStreamer_and_RTP.html">the
1733 followup post</a> for a even better approach.</p>
1734
1735 <p>A while back, I was asked by a friend how to stream the desktop to
1736 my projector connected to Kodi.  I sadly had to admit that I had no
1737 idea, as it was a task I never had tried.  Since then, I have been
1738 looking for a way to do so, preferable without much extra software to
1739 install on either side.  Today I found a way that seem to kind of
1740 work.  Not great, but it is a start.</p>
1741
1742 <p>I had a look at several approaches, for example
1743 <a href="https://github.com/mfoetsch/dlna_live_streaming">using uPnP
1744 DLNA as described in 2011</a>, but it required a uPnP server, fuse and
1745 local storage enough to store the stream locally.  This is not going
1746 to work well for me, lacking enough free space, and it would
1747 impossible for my friend to get working.</p>
1748
1749 <p>Next, it occurred to me that perhaps I could use VLC to create a
1750 video stream that Kodi could play.  Preferably using
1751 broadcast/multicast, to avoid having to change any setup on the Kodi
1752 side when starting such stream.  Unfortunately, the only recipe I
1753 could find using multicast used the rtp protocol, and this protocol
1754 seem to not be supported by Kodi.</p>
1755
1756 <p>On the other hand, the rtsp protocol is working!  Unfortunately I
1757 have to specify the IP address of the streaming machine in both the
1758 sending command and the file on the Kodi server.  But it is showing my
1759 desktop, and thus allow us to have a shared look on the big screen at
1760 the programs I work on.</p>
1761
1762 <p>I did not spend much time investigating codeces.  I combined the
1763 rtp and rtsp recipes from
1764 <a href="https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Streaming_HowTo/Command_Line_Examples/">the
1765 VLC Streaming HowTo/Command Line Examples</a>, and was able to get
1766 this working on the desktop/streaming end.</p>
1767
1768 <blockquote><pre>
1769 vlc screen:// --sout \
1770   '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{dst=projector.local,port=1234,sdp=rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp}'
1771 </pre></blockquote>
1772
1773 <p>I ssh-ed into my Kodi box and created a file like this with the
1774 same IP address:</p>
1775
1776 <blockquote><pre>
1777 echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/test.sdp \
1778   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
1779 </pre></blockquote>
1780
1781 <p>Note the 192.168.11.4 IP address is my desktops IP address.  As far
1782 as I can tell the IP must be hardcoded for this to work.  In other
1783 words, if someone elses machine is going to do the steaming, you have
1784 to update screenstream.m3u on the Kodi machine and adjust the vlc
1785 recipe.  To get started, locate the file in Kodi and select the m3u
1786 file while the VLC stream is running.  The desktop then show up in my
1787 big screen. :)</p>
1788
1789 <p>When using the same technique to stream a video file with audio,
1790 the audio quality is really bad.  No idea if the problem is package
1791 loss or bad parameters for the transcode.  I do not know VLC nor Kodi
1792 enough to tell.</p>
1793
1794 <p><strong>Update 2018-07-12</strong>: Johannes Schauer send me a few
1795 succestions and reminded me about an important step.  The "screen:"
1796 input source is only available once the vlc-plugin-access-extra
1797 package is installed on Debian.  Without it, you will see this error
1798 message: "VLC is unable to open the MRL 'screen://'.  Check the log
1799 for details."  He further found that it is possible to drop some parts
1800 of the VLC command line to reduce the amount of hardcoded information.
1801 It is also useful to consider using cvlc to avoid having the VLC
1802 window in the desktop view.  In sum, this give us this command line on
1803 the source end
1804
1805 <blockquote><pre>
1806 cvlc screen:// --sout \
1807   '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8080/}'
1808 </pre></blockquote>
1809
1810 <p>and this on the Kodi end<p>
1811
1812 <blockquote><pre>
1813 echo rtsp://192.168.11.4:8080/ \
1814   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
1815 </pre></blockquote>
1816
1817 <p>Still bad image quality, though.  But I did discover that streaming
1818 a DVD using dvdsimple:///dev/dvd as the source had excellent video and
1819 audio quality, so I guess the issue is in the input or transcoding
1820 parts, not the rtsp part.  I've tried to change the vb and ab
1821 parameters to use more bandwidth, but it did not make a
1822 difference.</p>
1823
1824 <p>I further received a suggestion from Einar Haraldseid to try using
1825 gstreamer instead of VLC, and this proved to work great!  He also
1826 provided me with the trick to get Kodi to use a multicast stream as
1827 its source.  By using this monstrous oneliner, I can stream my desktop
1828 with good video quality in reasonable framerate to the 239.255.0.1
1829 multicast address on port 1234:
1830
1831 <blockquote><pre>
1832 gst-launch-1.0 ximagesrc use-damage=0 ! video/x-raw,framerate=30/1 ! \
1833   videoconvert ! queue2 ! \
1834   x264enc bitrate=8000 speed-preset=superfast tune=zerolatency qp-min=30 \
1835   key-int-max=15 bframes=2 ! video/x-h264,profile=high ! queue2 ! \
1836   mpegtsmux alignment=7 name=mux ! rndbuffersize max=1316 min=1316 ! \
1837   udpsink host=239.255.0.1 port=1234 ttl-mc=1 auto-multicast=1 sync=0 \
1838   pulsesrc device=$(pactl list | grep -A2 'Source #' | \
1839     grep 'Name: .*\.monitor$' |  cut -d" " -f2|head -1) ! \
1840   audioconvert ! queue2 ! avenc_aac ! queue2 ! mux.
1841 </pre></blockquote>
1842
1843 <p>and this on the Kodi end<p>
1844
1845 <blockquote><pre>
1846 echo udp://@239.255.0.1:1234 \
1847   > /storage/videos/screenstream.m3u
1848 </pre></blockquote>
1849
1850 <p>Note the trick to pick a valid pulseaudio source.  It might not
1851 pick the one you need.  This approach will of course lead to trouble
1852 if more than one source uses the same multicast port and address.
1853 Note the ttl-mc=1 setting, which limit the multicast packages to the
1854 local network.  If the value is increased, your screen will be
1855 broadcasted further, one network "hop" for each increase (read up on
1856 multicast to learn more. :)!</p>
1857
1858 <p>Having cracked how to get Kodi to receive multicast streams, I
1859 could use this VLC command to stream to the same multicast address.
1860 The image quality is way better than the rtsp approach, but gstreamer
1861 seem to be doing a better job.</p>
1862
1863 <blockquote><pre>
1864 cvlc screen:// --sout '#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,acodec=mpga,vb=800,ab=128}:rtp{mux=ts,dst=239.255.0.1,port=1234,sdp=sap}'
1865 </pre></blockquote>
1866
1867 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1868 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1869 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1870
1871       </div>
1872       <div class="tags">
1873
1874
1875         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>.
1876
1877
1878       </div>
1879     </div>
1880     <div class="padding"></div>
1881
1882     <div class="entry">
1883       <div class="title">
1884         <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>
1885       </div>
1886       <div class="date">
1887          9th July 2018
1888       </div>
1889       <div class="body">
1890         <p>Five years ago,
1891 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">I
1892 measured what the most supported MIME type in Debian was</a>, by
1893 analysing the desktop files in all packages in the archive.  Since
1894 then, the DEP-11 AppStream system has been put into production, making
1895 the task a lot easier.  This made me want to repeat the measurement,
1896 to see how much things changed.  Here are the new numbers, for
1897 unstable only this time:
1898
1899 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
1900
1901 <pre>
1902   count MIME type
1903   ----- -----------------------
1904      56 image/jpeg
1905      55 image/png
1906      49 image/tiff
1907      48 image/gif
1908      39 image/bmp
1909      38 text/plain
1910      37 audio/mpeg
1911      34 application/ogg
1912      33 audio/x-flac
1913      32 audio/x-mp3
1914      30 audio/x-wav
1915      30 audio/x-vorbis+ogg
1916      29 image/x-portable-pixmap
1917      27 inode/directory
1918      27 image/x-portable-bitmap
1919      27 audio/x-mpeg
1920      26 application/x-ogg
1921      25 audio/x-mpegurl
1922      25 audio/ogg
1923      24 text/html
1924 </pre>
1925
1926 <p>The list was created like this using a sid chroot: "cat
1927 /var/lib/apt/lists/*sid*_dep11_Components-amd64.yml.gz| zcat | awk '/^
1928 - \S+\/\S+$/ {print $2 }' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20"</p>
1929
1930 <p>It is interesting to see how image formats have passed text/plain
1931 as the most announced supported MIME type.  These days, thanks to the
1932 AppStream system, if you run into a file format you do not know, and
1933 want to figure out which packages support the format, you can find the
1934 MIME type of the file using "file --mime &lt;filename&gt;", and then
1935 look up all packages announcing support for this format in their
1936 AppStream metadata (XML or .desktop file) using "appstreamcli
1937 what-provides mimetype &lt;mime-type&gt;.  For example if you, like
1938 me, want to know which packages support inode/directory, you can get a
1939 list like this:</p>
1940
1941 <p><blockquote><pre>
1942 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype inode/directory | grep Package: | sort
1943 Package: anjuta
1944 Package: audacious
1945 Package: baobab
1946 Package: cervisia
1947 Package: chirp
1948 Package: dolphin
1949 Package: doublecmd-common
1950 Package: easytag
1951 Package: enlightenment
1952 Package: ephoto
1953 Package: filelight
1954 Package: gwenview
1955 Package: k4dirstat
1956 Package: kaffeine
1957 Package: kdesvn
1958 Package: kid3
1959 Package: kid3-qt
1960 Package: nautilus
1961 Package: nemo
1962 Package: pcmanfm
1963 Package: pcmanfm-qt
1964 Package: qweborf
1965 Package: ranger
1966 Package: sirikali
1967 Package: spacefm
1968 Package: spacefm
1969 Package: vifm
1970 %
1971 </pre></blockquote></p>
1972
1973 <p>Using the same method, I can quickly discover that the Sketchup file
1974 format is not yet supported by any package in Debian:</p>
1975
1976 <p><blockquote><pre>
1977 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype  application/vnd.sketchup.skp
1978 Could not find component providing 'mimetype::application/vnd.sketchup.skp'.
1979 %
1980 </pre></blockquote></p>
1981
1982 <p>Yesterday I used it to figure out which packages support the STL 3D
1983 format:</p>
1984
1985 <p><blockquote><pre>
1986 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype  application/sla|grep Package
1987 Package: cura
1988 Package: meshlab
1989 Package: printrun
1990 %
1991 </pre></blockquote></p>
1992
1993 <p>PS: A new version of Cura was uploaded to Debian yesterday.</p>
1994
1995 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1996 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1997 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1998
1999       </div>
2000       <div class="tags">
2001
2002
2003         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>.
2004
2005
2006       </div>
2007     </div>
2008     <div class="padding"></div>
2009
2010     <div class="entry">
2011       <div class="title">
2012         <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>
2013       </div>
2014       <div class="date">
2015          8th July 2018
2016       </div>
2017       <div class="body">
2018         <p>Quite regularly, I let my Debian Sid/Unstable chroot stay untouch
2019 for a while, and when I need to update it there is not enough free
2020 space on the disk for apt to do a normal 'apt upgrade'.  I normally
2021 would resolve the issue by doing 'apt install &lt;somepackages&gt;' to
2022 upgrade only some of the packages in one batch, until the amount of
2023 packages to download fall below the amount of free space available.
2024 Today, I had about 500 packages to upgrade, and after a while I got
2025 tired of trying to install chunks of packages manually.  I concluded
2026 that I did not have the spare hours required to complete the task, and
2027 decided to see if I could automate it.  I came up with this small
2028 script which I call 'apt-in-chunks':</p>
2029
2030 <p><blockquote><pre>
2031 #!/bin/sh
2032 #
2033 # Upgrade packages when the disk is too full to upgrade every
2034 # upgradable package in one lump.  Fetching packages to upgrade using
2035 # apt, and then installing using dpkg, to avoid changing the package
2036 # flag for manual/automatic.
2037
2038 set -e
2039
2040 ignore() {
2041     if [ "$1" ]; then
2042         grep -v "$1"
2043     else
2044         cat
2045     fi
2046 }
2047
2048 for p in $(apt list --upgradable | ignore "$@" |cut -d/ -f1 | grep -v '^Listing...'); do
2049     echo "Upgrading $p"
2050     apt clean
2051     apt install --download-only -y $p
2052     for f in /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb; do
2053         if [ -e "$f" ]; then
2054             dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb
2055             break
2056         fi
2057     done
2058 done
2059 </pre></blockquote></p>
2060
2061 <p>The script will extract the list of packages to upgrade, try to
2062 download the packages needed to upgrade one package, install the
2063 downloaded packages using dpkg.  The idea is to upgrade packages
2064 without changing the APT mark for the package (ie the one recording of
2065 the package was manually requested or pulled in as a dependency).  To
2066 use it, simply run it as root from the command line.  If it fail, try
2067 'apt install -f' to clean up the mess and run the script again.  This
2068 might happen if the new packages conflict with one of the old
2069 packages.  dpkg is unable to remove, while apt can do this.</p>
2070
2071 <p>It take one option, a package to ignore in the list of packages to
2072 upgrade.  The option to ignore a package is there to be able to skip
2073 the packages that are simply too large to unpack.  Today this was
2074 'ghc', but I have run into other large packages causing similar
2075 problems earlier (like TeX).</p>
2076
2077 <p>Update 2018-07-08: Thanks to Paul Wise, I am aware of two
2078 alternative ways to handle this.  The "unattended-upgrades
2079 --minimal-upgrade-steps" option will try to calculate upgrade sets for
2080 each package to upgrade, and then upgrade them in order, smallest set
2081 first.  It might be a better option than my above mentioned script.
2082 Also, "aptutude upgrade" can upgrade single packages, thus avoiding
2083 the need for using "dpkg -i" in the script above.</p>
2084
2085 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2086 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2087 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2088
2089       </div>
2090       <div class="tags">
2091
2092
2093         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>.
2094
2095
2096       </div>
2097     </div>
2098     <div class="padding"></div>
2099
2100     <div class="entry">
2101       <div class="title">
2102         <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>
2103       </div>
2104       <div class="date">
2105         13th February 2018
2106       </div>
2107       <div class="body">
2108         <p>A new version of the
2109 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura">3D printer slicer
2110 software Cura</a>, version 3.1.0, is now available in Debian Testing
2111 (aka Buster) and Debian Unstable (aka Sid).  I hope you find it
2112 useful.  It was uploaded the last few days, and the last update will
2113 enter testing tomorrow.  See the
2114 <a href="https://ultimaker.com/en/products/cura-software/release-notes">release
2115 notes</a> for the list of bug fixes and new features.  Version 3.2
2116 was announced 6 days ago.  We will try to get it into Debian as
2117 well.</p>
2118
2119 <p>More information related to 3D printing is available on the
2120 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/3DPrinting">3D printing</a> and
2121 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/3D-printer">3D printer</a> wiki pages
2122 in Debian.</p>
2123
2124 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2125 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2126 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2127
2128       </div>
2129       <div class="tags">
2130
2131
2132         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>.
2133
2134
2135       </div>
2136     </div>
2137     <div class="padding"></div>
2138
2139     <div class="entry">
2140       <div class="title">
2141         <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>
2142       </div>
2143       <div class="date">
2144         17th December 2017
2145       </div>
2146       <div class="body">
2147         <p>After several months of working and waiting, I am happy to report
2148 that the nice and user friendly 3D printer slicer software Cura just
2149 entered Debian Unstable.  It consist of five packages,
2150 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura">cura</a>,
2151 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura-engine">cura-engine</a>,
2152 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libarcus">libarcus</a>,
2153 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/fdm-materials">fdm-materials</a>,
2154 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libsavitar">libsavitar</a> and
2155 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/uranium">uranium</a>.  The last
2156 two, uranium and cura, entered Unstable yesterday.  This should make
2157 it easier for Debian users to print on at least the Ultimaker class of
2158 3D printers.  My nearest 3D printer is an Ultimaker 2+, so it will
2159 make life easier for at least me. :)</p>
2160
2161 <p>The work to make this happen was done by Gregor Riepl, and I was
2162 happy to assist him in sponsoring the packages.  With the introduction
2163 of Cura, Debian is up to three 3D printer slicers at your service,
2164 Cura, Slic3r and Slic3r Prusa.  If you own or have access to a 3D
2165 printer, give it a go. :)</p>
2166
2167 <p>The 3D printer software is maintained by the 3D printer Debian
2168 team, flocking together on the
2169 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/3dprinter-general">3dprinter-general</a>
2170 mailing list and the
2171 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-3dprinting">#debian-3dprinting</a>
2172 IRC channel.</p>
2173
2174 <p>The next step for Cura in Debian is to update the cura package to
2175 version 3.0.3 and then update the entire set of packages to version
2176 3.1.0 which showed up the last few days.</p>
2177
2178       </div>
2179       <div class="tags">
2180
2181
2182         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>.
2183
2184
2185       </div>
2186     </div>
2187     <div class="padding"></div>
2188
2189     <div class="entry">
2190       <div class="title">
2191         <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>
2192       </div>
2193       <div class="date">
2194          9th October 2017
2195       </div>
2196       <div class="body">
2197         <p>At my nearby maker space,
2198 <a href="http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Sonen</a>, I heard the story that it
2199 was easier to generate gcode files for theyr 3D printers (Ultimake 2+)
2200 on Windows and MacOS X than Linux, because the software involved had
2201 to be manually compiled and set up on Linux while premade packages
2202 worked out of the box on Windows and MacOS X.  I found this annoying,
2203 as the software involved,
2204 <a href="https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura">Cura</a>, is free software
2205 and should be trivial to get up and running on Linux if someone took
2206 the time to package it for the relevant distributions.  I even found
2207 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/706656">a request for adding into
2208 Debian</a> from 2013, which had seem some activity over the years but
2209 never resulted in the software showing up in Debian.  So a few days
2210 ago I offered my help to try to improve the situation.</p>
2211
2212 <p>Now I am very happy to see that all the packages required by a
2213 working Cura in Debian are uploaded into Debian and waiting in the NEW
2214 queue for the ftpmasters to have a look.  You can track the progress
2215 on
2216 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=3dprinter-general%40lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2217 status page for the 3D printer team</a>.</p>
2218
2219 <p>The uploaded packages are a bit behind upstream, and was uploaded
2220 now to get slots in <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW
2221 queue</a> while we work up updating the packages to the latest
2222 upstream version.</p>
2223
2224 <p>On a related note, two competitors for Cura, which I found harder
2225 to use and was unable to configure correctly for Ultimaker 2+ in the
2226 short time I spent on it, are already in Debian.  If you are looking
2227 for 3D printer "slicers" and want something already available in
2228 Debian, check out
2229 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r">slic3r</a> and
2230 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/slic3r-prusa">slic3r-prusa</a>.
2231 The latter is a fork of the former.</p>
2232
2233 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2234 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2235 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2236
2237       </div>
2238       <div class="tags">
2239
2240
2241         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>.
2242
2243
2244       </div>
2245     </div>
2246     <div class="padding"></div>
2247
2248     <div class="entry">
2249       <div class="title">
2250         <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>
2251       </div>
2252       <div class="date">
2253         29th September 2017
2254       </div>
2255       <div class="body">
2256         <p>Every mobile phone announce its existence over radio to the nearby
2257 mobile cell towers.  And this radio chatter is available for anyone
2258 with a radio receiver capable of receiving them.  Details about the
2259 mobile phones with very good accuracy is of course collected by the
2260 phone companies, but this is not the topic of this blog post.  The
2261 mobile phone radio chatter make it possible to figure out when a cell
2262 phone is nearby, as it include the SIM card ID (IMSI).  By paying
2263 attention over time, one can see when a phone arrive and when it leave
2264 an area.  I believe it would be nice to make this information more
2265 available to the general public, to make more people aware of how
2266 their phones are announcing their whereabouts to anyone that care to
2267 listen.</p>
2268
2269 <p>I am very happy to report that we managed to get something
2270 visualizing this information up and running for
2271 <a href="http://norwaymakers.org/osf17">Oslo Skaperfestival 2017</a>
2272 (Oslo Makers Festival) taking place today and tomorrow at Deichmanske
2273 library.  The solution is based on the
2274 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Easier_recipe_to_observe_the_cell_phones_around_you.html">simple
2275 recipe for listening to GSM chatter</a> I posted a few days ago, and
2276 will show up at the stand of <a href="http://sonen.ifi.uio.no/">Åpen
2277 Sone from the Computer Science department of the University of
2278 Oslo</a>.  The presentation will show the nearby mobile phones (aka
2279 IMSIs) as dots in a web browser graph, with lines to the dot
2280 representing mobile base station it is talking to. It was working in
2281 the lab yesterday, and was moved into place this morning.</p>
2282
2283 <p>We set up a fairly powerful desktop machine using Debian
2284 Buster/Testing with several (five, I believe) RTL2838 DVB-T receivers
2285 connected and visualize the visible cell phone towers using an
2286 <a href="https://github.com/marlow925/hopglass">English version of
2287 Hopglass</a>.  A fairly powerfull machine is needed as the
2288 grgsm_livemon_headless processes from
2289 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a> converting
2290 the radio signal to data packages is quite CPU intensive.</p>
2291
2292 <p>The frequencies to listen to, are identified using a slightly
2293 patched scan-and-livemon (to set the --args values for each receiver),
2294 and the Hopglass data is generated using the
2295 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/IMSI-catcher/tree/meshviewer-output">patches
2296 in my meshviewer-output branch</a>.  For some reason we could not get
2297 more than four SDRs working.  There is also a geographical map trying
2298 to show the location of the base stations, but I believe their
2299 coordinates are hardcoded to some random location in Germany, I
2300 believe.  The code should be replaced with code to look up location in
2301 a text file, a sqlite database or one of the online databases
2302 mentioned in
2303 <a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher/issues/14">the github
2304 issue for the topic</a>.
2305
2306 <p>If this sound interesting, visit the stand at the festival!</p>
2307
2308       </div>
2309       <div class="tags">
2310
2311
2312         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>.
2313
2314
2315       </div>
2316     </div>
2317     <div class="padding"></div>
2318
2319     <div class="entry">
2320       <div class="title">
2321         <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>
2322       </div>
2323       <div class="date">
2324         24th September 2017
2325       </div>
2326       <div class="body">
2327         <p>A little more than a month ago I wrote
2328 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Simpler_recipe_on_how_to_make_a_simple__7_IMSI_Catcher_using_Debian.html">how
2329 to observe the SIM card ID (aka IMSI number) of mobile phones talking
2330 to nearby mobile phone base stations using Debian GNU/Linux and a
2331 cheap USB software defined radio</a>, and thus being able to pinpoint
2332 the location of people and equipment (like cars and trains) with an
2333 accuracy of a few kilometer.  Since then we have worked to make the
2334 procedure even simpler, and it is now possible to do this without any
2335 manual frequency tuning and without building your own packages.</p>
2336
2337 <p>The <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gr-gsm">gr-gsm</a>
2338 package is now included in Debian testing and unstable, and the
2339 IMSI-catcher code no longer require root access to fetch and decode
2340 the GSM data collected using gr-gsm.</p>
2341
2342 <p>Here is an updated recipe, using packages built by Debian and a git
2343 clone of two python scripts:</p>
2344
2345 <ol>
2346
2347 <li>Start with a Debian machine running the Buster version (aka
2348   testing).</li>
2349
2350 <li>Run '<tt>apt install gr-gsm python-numpy python-scipy
2351   python-scapy</tt>' as root to install required packages.</li>
2352
2353 <li>Fetch the code decoding GSM packages using '<tt>git clone
2354   github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher.git</tt>'.</li>
2355
2356 <li>Insert USB software defined radio supported by GNU Radio.</li>
2357
2358 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
2359   scan-and-livemon</tt>' to locate the frequency of nearby base
2360   stations and start listening for GSM packages on one of them.</li>
2361
2362 <li>Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run '<tt>python
2363   simple_IMSI-catcher.py</tt>' to display the collected information.</li>
2364
2365 </ol>
2366
2367 <p>Note, due to a bug somewhere the scan-and-livemon program (actually
2368 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/issues/336">its underlying
2369 program grgsm_scanner</a>) do not work with the HackRF radio.  It does
2370 work with RTL 8232 and other similar USB radio receivers you can get
2371 very cheaply
2372 (<a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw=rtl+2832">for example
2373 from ebay</a>), so for now the solution is to scan using the RTL radio
2374 and only use HackRF for fetching GSM data.</p>
2375
2376 <p>As far as I can tell, a cell phone only show up on one of the
2377 frequencies at the time, so if you are going to track and count every
2378 cell phone around you, you need to listen to all the frequencies used.
2379 To listen to several frequencies, use the --numrecv argument to
2380 scan-and-livemon to use several receivers.  Further, I am not sure if
2381 phones using 3G or 4G will show as talking GSM to base stations, so
2382 this approach might not see all phones around you.  I typically see
2383 0-400 IMSI numbers an hour when looking around where I live.</p>
2384
2385 <p>I've tried to run the scanner on a
2386 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi 2 and 3
2387 running Debian Buster</a>, but the grgsm_livemon_headless process seem
2388 to be too CPU intensive to keep up.  When GNU Radio print 'O' to
2389 stdout, I am told there it is caused by a buffer overflow between the
2390 radio and GNU Radio, caused by the program being unable to read the
2391 GSM data fast enough.  If you see a stream of 'O's from the terminal
2392 where you started scan-and-livemon, you need a give the process more
2393 CPU power.  Perhaps someone are able to optimize the code to a point
2394 where it become possible to set up RPi3 based GSM sniffers?  I tried
2395 using Raspbian instead of Debian, but there seem to be something wrong
2396 with GNU Radio on raspbian, causing glibc to abort().</p>
2397
2398       </div>
2399       <div class="tags">
2400
2401
2402         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>.
2403
2404
2405       </div>
2406     </div>
2407     <div class="padding"></div>
2408
2409     <div class="entry">
2410       <div class="title">
2411         <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>
2412       </div>
2413       <div class="date">
2414          9th August 2017
2415       </div>
2416       <div class="body">
2417         <p>On friday, I came across an interesting article in the Norwegian
2418 web based ICT news magazine digi.no on
2419 <a href="https://www.digi.no/artikler/sikkerhetsforsker-lagde-enkel-imsi-catcher-for-60-kroner-na-kan-mobiler-kartlegges-av-alle/398588">how
2420 to collect the IMSI numbers of nearby cell phones</a> using the cheap
2421 DVB-T software defined radios.  The article refered to instructions
2422 and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjwgNd_as30">a recipe by
2423 Keld Norman on Youtube on how to make a simple $7 IMSI Catcher</a>, and I decided to test them out.</p>
2424
2425 <p>The instructions said to use Ubuntu, install pip using apt (to
2426 bypass apt), use pip to install pybombs (to bypass both apt and pip),
2427 and the ask pybombs to fetch and build everything you need from
2428 scratch.  I wanted to see if I could do the same on the most recent
2429 Debian packages, but this did not work because pybombs tried to build
2430 stuff that no longer build with the most recent openssl library or
2431 some other version skew problem.  While trying to get this recipe
2432 working, I learned that the apt->pip->pybombs route was a long detour,
2433 and the only piece of software dependency missing in Debian was the
2434 gr-gsm package.  I also found out that the lead upstream developer of
2435 gr-gsm (the name stand for GNU Radio GSM) project already had a set of
2436 Debian packages provided in an Ubuntu PPA repository.  All I needed to
2437 do was to dget the Debian source package and built it.</p>
2438
2439 <p>The IMSI collector is a python script listening for packages on the
2440 loopback network device and printing to the terminal some specific GSM
2441 packages with IMSI numbers in them.  The code is fairly short and easy
2442 to understand.  The reason this work is because gr-gsm include a tool
2443 to read GSM data from a software defined radio like a DVB-T USB stick
2444 and other software defined radios, decode them and inject them into a
2445 network device on your Linux machine (using the loopback device by
2446 default).  This proved to work just fine, and I've been testing the
2447 collector for a few days now.</p>
2448
2449 <p>The updated and simpler recipe is thus to</p>
2450
2451 <ol>
2452
2453 <li>start with a Debian machine running Stretch or newer,</li>
2454
2455 <li>build and install the gr-gsm package available from
2456 <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>
2457
2458 <li>clone the git repostory from <a href="https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher">https://github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher</a>,</li>
2459
2460 <li>run grgsm_livemon and adjust the frequency until the terminal
2461 where it was started is filled with a stream of text (meaning you
2462 found a GSM station).</li>
2463
2464 <li>go into the IMSI-catcher directory and run 'sudo python simple_IMSI-catcher.py' to extract the IMSI numbers.</li>
2465
2466 </ol>
2467
2468 <p>To make it even easier in the future to get this sniffer up and
2469 running, I decided to package
2470 <a href="https://github.com/ptrkrysik/gr-gsm/">the gr-gsm project</a>
2471 for Debian (<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/871055">WNPP
2472 #871055</a>), and the package was uploaded into the NEW queue today.
2473 Luckily the gnuradio maintainer has promised to help me, as I do not
2474 know much about gnuradio stuff yet.</p>
2475
2476 <p>I doubt this "IMSI cacher" is anywhere near as powerfull as
2477 commercial tools like
2478 <a href="https://www.thespyphone.com/portable-imsi-imei-catcher/">The
2479 Spy Phone Portable IMSI / IMEI Catcher</a> or the
2480 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker">Harris
2481 Stingray</a>, but I hope the existance of cheap alternatives can make
2482 more people realise how their whereabouts when carrying a cell phone
2483 is easily tracked.  Seeing the data flow on the screen, realizing that
2484 I live close to a police station and knowing that the police is also
2485 wearing cell phones, I wonder how hard it would be for criminals to
2486 track the position of the police officers to discover when there are
2487 police near by, or for foreign military forces to track the location
2488 of the Norwegian military forces, or for anyone to track the location
2489 of government officials...</p>
2490
2491 <p>It is worth noting that the data reported by the IMSI-catcher
2492 script mentioned above is only a fraction of the data broadcasted on
2493 the GSM network.  It will only collect one frequency at the time,
2494 while a typical phone will be using several frequencies, and not all
2495 phones will be using the frequencies tracked by the grgsm_livemod
2496 program.  Also, there is a lot of radio chatter being ignored by the
2497 simple_IMSI-catcher script, which would be collected by extending the
2498 parser code.  I wonder if gr-gsm can be set up to listen to more than
2499 one frequency?</p>
2500
2501       </div>
2502       <div class="tags">
2503
2504
2505         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>.
2506
2507
2508       </div>
2509     </div>
2510     <div class="padding"></div>
2511
2512     <div class="entry">
2513       <div class="title">
2514         <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>
2515       </div>
2516       <div class="date">
2517         25th July 2017
2518       </div>
2519       <div class="body">
2520         <p align="center"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-07-25-debian-handbook-nb-testprint.png"/></p>
2521
2522 <p>I finally received a copy of the Norwegian Bokmål edition of
2523 "<a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian Administrator's
2524 Handbook</a>".  This test copy arrived in the mail a few days ago, and
2525 I am very happy to hold the result in my hand.   We spent around one and a half year translating it. This paperbook edition
2526 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian">is available
2527 from lulu.com</a>.  If you buy it quickly, you save 25% on the list
2528 price.  The book is also available for download in electronic form as
2529 PDF, EPUB and Mobipocket, as can be
2530 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/browse/nb-NO/stable/">read online
2531 as a web page</a>.</p>
2532
2533 <p>This is the second book I publish (the first was the book
2534 "<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a>" by Lawrence Lessig
2535 in
2536 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22440520.html">English</a>,
2537 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html">French</a>
2538 and
2539 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">Norwegian
2540 Bokmål</a>), and I am very excited to finally wrap up this
2541 project.  I hope
2542 "<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
2543 for Debian-administratoren</a>" will be well received.</p>
2544
2545       </div>
2546       <div class="tags">
2547
2548
2549         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>.
2550
2551
2552       </div>
2553     </div>
2554     <div class="padding"></div>
2555
2556     <div class="entry">
2557       <div class="title">
2558         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/N_r_nynorskoversettelsen_svikter_til_eksamen___.html">Når nynorskoversettelsen svikter til eksamen...</a>
2559       </div>
2560       <div class="date">
2561          3rd June 2017
2562       </div>
2563       <div class="body">
2564         <p><a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/norge/Krever-at-elever-ma-fa-annullert-eksamen-etter-rot-med-oppgavetekster-622459b.html">Aftenposten
2565 melder i dag</a> om feil i eksamensoppgavene for eksamen i politikk og
2566 menneskerettigheter, der teksten i bokmåls og nynorskutgaven ikke var
2567 like.  Oppgaveteksten er gjengitt i artikkelen, og jeg ble nysgjerring
2568 på om den fri oversetterløsningen
2569 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium</a> ville gjort en bedre
2570 jobb enn Utdanningsdirektoratet.  Det kan se slik ut.</p>
2571
2572 <p>Her er bokmålsoppgaven fra eksamenen:</p>
2573
2574 <blockquote>
2575 <p>Drøft utfordringene knyttet til nasjonalstatenes og andre aktørers
2576 rolle og muligheter til å håndtere internasjonale utfordringer, som
2577 for eksempel flykningekrisen.</p>
2578
2579 <p>Vedlegge er eksempler på tekster som kan gi relevante perspektiver
2580 på temaet:</p>
2581 <ol>
2582 <li>Flykningeregnskapet 2016, UNHCR og IDMC
2583 <li>«Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015
2584 </ol>
2585
2586 </blockquote>
2587
2588 <p>Dette oversetter Apertium slik:</p>
2589
2590 <blockquote>
2591 <p>Drøft utfordringane knytte til nasjonalstatane sine og rolla til
2592 andre aktørar og høve til å handtera internasjonale utfordringar, som
2593 til dømes *flykningekrisen.</p>
2594
2595 <p>Vedleggja er døme på tekster som kan gje relevante perspektiv på
2596 temaet:</p>
2597
2598 <ol>
2599 <li>*Flykningeregnskapet 2016, *UNHCR og *IDMC</li>
2600 <li>«*Grenseløst Europa for fall» A-Magasinet, 26. november 2015</li>
2601 </ol>
2602
2603 </blockquote>
2604
2605 <p>Ord som ikke ble forstått er markert med stjerne (*), og trenger
2606 ekstra språksjekk.  Men ingen ord er forsvunnet, slik det var i
2607 oppgaven elevene fikk presentert på eksamen.  Jeg mistenker dog at
2608 "andre aktørers rolle og muligheter til ..." burde vært oversatt til
2609 "rolla til andre aktørar og deira høve til ..." eller noe slikt, men
2610 det er kanskje flisespikking.  Det understreker vel bare at det alltid
2611 trengs korrekturlesning etter automatisk oversettelse.</p>
2612
2613       </div>
2614       <div class="tags">
2615
2616
2617         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>.
2618
2619
2620       </div>
2621     </div>
2622     <div class="padding"></div>
2623
2624     <div class="entry">
2625       <div class="title">
2626         <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>
2627       </div>
2628       <div class="date">
2629          9th March 2017
2630       </div>
2631       <div class="body">
2632         <p>Over the years, administrating thousand of NFS mounting linux
2633 computers at the time, I often needed a way to detect if the machine
2634 was experiencing NFS hang.  If you try to use <tt>df</tt> or look at a
2635 file or directory affected by the hang, the process (and possibly the
2636 shell) will hang too.  So you want to be able to detect this without
2637 risking the detection process getting stuck too.  It has not been
2638 obvious how to do this.  When the hang has lasted a while, it is
2639 possible to find messages like these in dmesg:</p>
2640
2641 <p><blockquote>
2642 nfs: server nfsserver not responding, still trying
2643 <br>nfs: server nfsserver OK
2644 </blockquote></p>
2645
2646 <p>It is hard to know if the hang is still going on, and it is hard to
2647 be sure looking in dmesg is going to work.  If there are lots of other
2648 messages in dmesg the lines might have rotated out of site before they
2649 are noticed.</p>
2650
2651 <p>While reading through the nfs client implementation in linux kernel
2652 code, I came across some statistics that seem to give a way to detect
2653 it.  The om_timeouts sunrpc value in the kernel will increase every
2654 time the above log entry is inserted into dmesg.  And after digging a
2655 bit further, I discovered that this value show up in
2656 /proc/self/mountstats on Linux.</p>
2657
2658 <p>The mountstats content seem to be shared between files using the
2659 same file system context, so it is enough to check one of the
2660 mountstats files to get the state of the mount point for the machine.
2661 I assume this will not show lazy umounted NFS points, nor NFS mount
2662 points in a different process context (ie with a different filesystem
2663 view), but that does not worry me.</p>
2664
2665 <p>The content for a NFS mount point look similar to this:</p>
2666
2667 <p><blockquote><pre>
2668 [...]
2669 device /dev/mapper/Debian-var mounted on /var with fstype ext3
2670 device nfsserver:/mnt/nfsserver/home0 mounted on /mnt/nfsserver/home0 with fstype nfs statvers=1.1
2671         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
2672         age:    7863311
2673         caps:   caps=0x3fe7,wtmult=4096,dtsize=8192,bsize=0,namlen=255
2674         sec:    flavor=1,pseudoflavor=1
2675         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
2676         bytes:  166253035039 219519120027 0 0 40783504807 185466229638 11677877 45561809
2677         RPC iostats version: 1.0  p/v: 100003/3 (nfs)
2678         xprt:   tcp 925 1 6810 0 0 111505412 111480497 109 2672418560317 0 248 53869103 22481820
2679         per-op statistics
2680                 NULL: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2681              GETATTR: 61063106 61063108 0 9621383060 6839064400 453650 77291321 78926132
2682              SETATTR: 463469 463470 0 92005440 66739536 63787 603235 687943
2683               LOOKUP: 17021657 17021657 0 3354097764 4013442928 57216 35125459 35566511
2684               ACCESS: 14281703 14290009 5 2318400592 1713803640 1709282 4865144 7130140
2685             READLINK: 125 125 0 20472 18620 0 1112 1118
2686                 READ: 4214236 4214237 0 715608524 41328653212 89884 22622768 22806693
2687                WRITE: 8479010 8494376 22 187695798568 1356087148 178264904 51506907 231671771
2688               CREATE: 171708 171708 0 38084748 46702272 873 1041833 1050398
2689                MKDIR: 3680 3680 0 773980 993920 26 23990 24245
2690              SYMLINK: 903 903 0 233428 245488 6 5865 5917
2691                MKNOD: 80 80 0 20148 21760 0 299 304
2692               REMOVE: 429921 429921 0 79796004 61908192 3313 2710416 2741636
2693                RMDIR: 3367 3367 0 645112 484848 22 5782 6002
2694               RENAME: 466201 466201 0 130026184 121212260 7075 5935207 5961288
2695                 LINK: 289155 289155 0 72775556 67083960 2199 2565060 2585579
2696              READDIR: 2933237 2933237 0 516506204 13973833412 10385 3190199 3297917
2697          READDIRPLUS: 1652839 1652839 0 298640972 6895997744 84735 14307895 14448937
2698               FSSTAT: 6144 6144 0 1010516 1032192 51 9654 10022
2699               FSINFO: 2 2 0 232 328 0 1 1
2700             PATHCONF: 1 1 0 116 140 0 0 0
2701               COMMIT: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2702
2703 device binfmt_misc mounted on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc with fstype binfmt_misc
2704 [...]
2705 </pre></blockquote></p>
2706
2707 <p>The key number to look at is the third number in the per-op list.
2708 It is the number of NFS timeouts experiences per file system
2709 operation.  Here 22 write timeouts and 5 access timeouts.  If these
2710 numbers are increasing, I believe the machine is experiencing NFS
2711 hang.  Unfortunately the timeout value do not start to increase right
2712 away.  The NFS operations need to time out first, and this can take a
2713 while.  The exact timeout value depend on the setup.  For example the
2714 defaults for TCP and UDP mount points are quite different, and the
2715 timeout value is affected by the soft, hard, timeo and retrans NFS
2716 mount options.</p>
2717
2718 <p>The only way I have been able to get working on Debian and RedHat
2719 Enterprise Linux for getting the timeout count is to peek in /proc/.
2720 But according to
2721 <ahref="http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4555/netmonitor-12/index.html">Solaris
2722 10 System Administration Guide: Network Services</a>, the 'nfsstat -c'
2723 command can be used to get these timeout values.  But this do not work
2724 on Linux, as far as I can tell.  I
2725 <ahref="http://bugs.debian.org/857043">asked Debian about this</a>,
2726 but have not seen any replies yet.</p>
2727
2728 <p>Is there a better way to figure out if a Linux NFS client is
2729 experiencing NFS hangs?  Is there a way to detect which processes are
2730 affected?  Is there a way to get the NFS mount going quickly once the
2731 network problem causing the NFS hang has been cleared?  I would very
2732 much welcome some clues, as we regularly run into NFS hangs.</p>
2733
2734       </div>
2735       <div class="tags">
2736
2737
2738         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>.
2739
2740
2741       </div>
2742     </div>
2743     <div class="padding"></div>
2744
2745     <div class="entry">
2746       <div class="title">
2747         <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>
2748       </div>
2749       <div class="date">
2750          3rd March 2017
2751       </div>
2752       <div class="body">
2753         <p>For almost a year now, we have been working on making a Norwegian
2754 Bokmål edition of <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/">The Debian
2755 Administrator's Handbook</a>.  Now, thanks to the tireless effort of
2756 Ole-Erik, Ingrid and Andreas, the initial translation is complete, and
2757 we are working on the proof reading to ensure consistent language and
2758 use of correct computer science terms.  The plan is to make the book
2759 available on paper, as well as in electronic form.  For that to
2760 happen, the proof reading must be completed and all the figures need
2761 to be translated.  If you want to help out, get in touch.</p>
2762
2763 <p><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-handbook/debian-handbook-nb-NO.pdf">A
2764
2765 fresh PDF edition</a> in A4 format (the final book will have smaller
2766 pages) of the book created every morning is available for
2767 proofreading.  If you find any errors, please
2768 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">visit
2769 Weblate and correct the error</a>.  The
2770 <a href="http://l.github.io/debian-handbook/stat/nb-NO/index.html">state
2771 of the translation including figures</a> is a useful source for those
2772 provide Norwegian bokmål screen shots and figures.</p>
2773
2774       </div>
2775       <div class="tags">
2776
2777
2778         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>.
2779
2780
2781       </div>
2782     </div>
2783     <div class="padding"></div>
2784
2785     <div class="entry">
2786       <div class="title">
2787         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlimited_randomness_with_the_ChaosKey_.html">Unlimited randomness with the ChaosKey?</a>
2788       </div>
2789       <div class="date">
2790          1st March 2017
2791       </div>
2792       <div class="body">
2793         <p>A few days ago I ordered a small batch of
2794 <a href="http://altusmetrum.org/ChaosKey/">the ChaosKey</a>, a small
2795 USB dongle for generating entropy created by Bdale Garbee and Keith
2796 Packard.  Yesterday it arrived, and I am very happy to report that it
2797 work great!  According to its designers, to get it to work out of the
2798 box, you need the Linux kernel version 4.1 or later.  I tested on a
2799 Debian Stretch machine (kernel version 4.9), and there it worked just
2800 fine, increasing the available entropy very quickly.  I wrote a small
2801 test oneliner to test.  It first print the current entropy level,
2802 drain /dev/random, and then print the entropy level for five seconds.
2803 Here is the situation without the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
2804
2805 <blockquote><pre>
2806 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
2807   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
2808   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
2809      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
2810      sleep 1; \
2811   done
2812 300
2813 0+1 oppføringer inn
2814 0+1 oppføringer ut
2815 28 byte kopiert, 0,000264565 s, 106 kB/s
2816 4
2817 8
2818 12
2819 17
2820 21
2821 %
2822 </pre></blockquote>
2823
2824 <p>The entropy level increases by 3-4 every second.  In such case any
2825 application requiring random bits (like a HTTPS enabled web server)
2826 will halt and wait for more entrpy.  And here is the situation with
2827 the ChaosKey inserted:</p>
2828
2829 <blockquote><pre>
2830 % cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
2831   dd bs=1M if=/dev/random of=/dev/null count=1; \
2832   for n in $(seq 1 5); do \
2833      cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail; \
2834      sleep 1; \
2835   done
2836 1079
2837 0+1 oppføringer inn
2838 0+1 oppføringer ut
2839 104 byte kopiert, 0,000487647 s, 213 kB/s
2840 433
2841 1028
2842 1031
2843 1035
2844 1038
2845 %
2846 </pre></blockquote>
2847
2848 <p>Quite the difference. :) I bought a few more than I need, in case
2849 someone want to buy one here in Norway. :)</p>
2850
2851 <p>Update: The dongle was presented at Debconf last year.  You might
2852 find <a href="https://debconf16.debconf.org/talks/94/">the talk
2853 recording illuminating</a>.  It explains exactly what the source of
2854 randomness is, if you are unable to spot it from the schema drawing
2855 available from the ChaosKey web site linked at the start of this blog
2856 post.</p>
2857
2858       </div>
2859       <div class="tags">
2860
2861
2862         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>.
2863
2864
2865       </div>
2866     </div>
2867     <div class="padding"></div>
2868
2869     <div class="entry">
2870       <div class="title">
2871         <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>
2872       </div>
2873       <div class="date">
2874          9th January 2017
2875       </div>
2876       <div class="body">
2877         <p>Did you ever wonder where the web trafic really flow to reach the
2878 web servers, and who own the network equipment it is flowing through?
2879 It is possible to get a glimpse of this from using traceroute, but it
2880 is hard to find all the details.  Many years ago, I wrote a system to
2881 map the Norwegian Internet (trying to figure out if our plans for a
2882 network game service would get low enough latency, and who we needed
2883 to talk to about setting up game servers close to the users.  Back
2884 then I used traceroute output from many locations (I asked my friends
2885 to run a script and send me their traceroute output) to create the
2886 graph and the map.  The output from traceroute typically look like
2887 this:
2888
2889 <p><pre>
2890 traceroute to www.stortinget.no (85.88.67.10), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
2891  1  uio-gw10.uio.no (129.240.202.1)  0.447 ms  0.486 ms  0.621 ms
2892  2  uio-gw8.uio.no (129.240.24.229)  0.467 ms  0.578 ms  0.675 ms
2893  3  oslo-gw1.uninett.no (128.39.65.17)  0.385 ms  0.373 ms  0.358 ms
2894  4  te3-1-2.br1.fn3.as2116.net (193.156.90.3)  1.174 ms  1.172 ms  1.153 ms
2895  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
2896  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
2897  7  89.191.10.146 (89.191.10.146)  0.931 ms  0.917 ms  0.955 ms
2898  8  * * *
2899  9  * * *
2900 [...]
2901 </pre></p>
2902
2903 <p>This show the DNS names and IP addresses of (at least some of the)
2904 network equipment involved in getting the data traffic from me to the
2905 www.stortinget.no server, and how long it took in milliseconds for a
2906 package to reach the equipment and return to me.  Three packages are
2907 sent, and some times the packages do not follow the same path.  This
2908 is shown for hop 5, where three different IP addresses replied to the
2909 traceroute request.</p>
2910
2911 <p>There are many ways to measure trace routes.  Other good traceroute
2912 implementations I use are traceroute (using ICMP packages) mtr (can do
2913 both ICMP, UDP and TCP) and scapy (python library with ICMP, UDP, TCP
2914 traceroute and a lot of other capabilities).  All of them are easily
2915 available in <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>.</p>
2916
2917 <p>This time around, I wanted to know the geographic location of
2918 different route points, to visualize how visiting a web page spread
2919 information about the visit to a lot of servers around the globe.  The
2920 background is that a web site today often will ask the browser to get
2921 from many servers the parts (for example HTML, JSON, fonts,
2922 JavaScript, CSS, video) required to display the content.  This will
2923 leak information about the visit to those controlling these servers
2924 and anyone able to peek at the data traffic passing by (like your ISP,
2925 the ISPs backbone provider, FRA, GCHQ, NSA and others).</p>
2926
2927 <p>Lets pick an example, the Norwegian parliament web site
2928 www.stortinget.no.  It is read daily by all members of parliament and
2929 their staff, as well as political journalists, activits and many other
2930 citizens of Norway.  A visit to the www.stortinget.no web site will
2931 ask your browser to contact 8 other servers: ajax.googleapis.com,
2932 insights.hotjar.com, script.hotjar.com, static.hotjar.com,
2933 stats.g.doubleclick.net, www.google-analytics.com,
2934 www.googletagmanager.com and www.netigate.se.  I extracted this by
2935 asking <a href="http://phantomjs.org/">PhantomJS</a> to visit the
2936 Stortinget web page and tell me all the URLs PhantomJS downloaded to
2937 render the page (in HAR format using
2938 <a href="https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/examples/netsniff.js">their
2939 netsniff example</a>.  I am very grateful to Gorm for showing me how
2940 to do this).  My goal is to visualize network traces to all IP
2941 addresses behind these DNS names, do show where visitors personal
2942 information is spread when visiting the page.</p>
2943
2944 <p align="center"><a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml"><img
2945 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>
2946
2947 <p>When I had a look around for options, I could not find any good
2948 free software tools to do this, and decided I needed my own traceroute
2949 wrapper outputting KML based on locations looked up using GeoIP.  KML
2950 is easy to work with and easy to generate, and understood by several
2951 of the GIS tools I have available.  I got good help from by NUUG
2952 colleague Anders Einar with this, and the result can be seen in
2953 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/kmltraceroute">my
2954 kmltraceroute git repository</a>.  Unfortunately, the quality of the
2955 free GeoIP databases I could find (and the for-pay databases my
2956 friends had access to) is not up to the task.  The IP addresses of
2957 central Internet infrastructure would typically be placed near the
2958 controlling companies main office, and not where the router is really
2959 located, as you can see from <a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml">the
2960 KML file I created</a> using the GeoLite City dataset from MaxMind.
2961
2962 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg"><img
2963 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>
2964
2965 <p>I also had a look at the visual traceroute graph created by
2966 <a href="http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/">the scrapy project</a>,
2967 showing IP network ownership (aka AS owner) for the IP address in
2968 question.
2969 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg">The
2970 graph display a lot of useful information about the traceroute in SVG
2971 format</a>, and give a good indication on who control the network
2972 equipment involved, but it do not include geolocation.  This graph
2973 make it possible to see the information is made available at least for
2974 UNINETT, Catchcom, Stortinget, Nordunet, Google, Amazon, Telia, Level
2975 3 Communications and NetDNA.</p>
2976
2977 <p align="center"><a href="https://geotraceroute.com/index.php?node=4&host=www.stortinget.no"><img
2978 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>
2979
2980 <p>In the process, I came across the
2981 <a href="https://geotraceroute.com/">web service GeoTraceroute</a> by
2982 Salim Gasmi.  Its methology of combining guesses based on DNS names,
2983 various location databases and finally use latecy times to rule out
2984 candidate locations seemed to do a very good job of guessing correct
2985 geolocation.  But it could only do one trace at the time, did not have
2986 a sensor in Norway and did not make the geolocations easily available
2987 for postprocessing.  So I contacted the developer and asked if he
2988 would be willing to share the code (he refused until he had time to
2989 clean it up), but he was interested in providing the geolocations in a
2990 machine readable format, and willing to set up a sensor in Norway.  So
2991 since yesterday, it is possible to run traces from Norway in this
2992 service thanks to a sensor node set up by
2993 <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG assosiation</a>, and get the
2994 trace in KML format for further processing.</p>
2995
2996 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.kml"><img
2997 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>
2998
2999 <p>Here we can see a lot of trafic passes Sweden on its way to
3000 Denmark, Germany, Holland and Ireland.  Plenty of places where the
3001 Snowden confirmations verified the traffic is read by various actors
3002 without your best interest as their top priority.</p>
3003
3004 <p>Combining KML files is trivial using a text editor, so I could loop
3005 over all the hosts behind the urls imported by www.stortinget.no and
3006 ask for the KML file from GeoTraceroute, and create a combined KML
3007 file with all the traces (unfortunately only one of the IP addresses
3008 behind the DNS name is traced this time.  To get them all, one would
3009 have to request traces using IP number instead of DNS names from
3010 GeoTraceroute).  That might be the next step in this project.</p>
3011
3012 <p>Armed with these tools, I find it a lot easier to figure out where
3013 the IP traffic moves and who control the boxes involved in moving it.
3014 And every time the link crosses for example the Swedish border, we can
3015 be sure Swedish Signal Intelligence (FRA) is listening, as GCHQ do in
3016 Britain and NSA in USA and cables around the globe.  (Hm, what should
3017 we tell them? :) Keep that in mind if you ever send anything
3018 unencrypted over the Internet.</p>
3019
3020 <p>PS: KML files are drawn using
3021 <a href="http://ivanrublev.me/kml/">the KML viewer from Ivan
3022 Rublev<a/>, as it was less cluttered than the local Linux application
3023 Marble.  There are heaps of other options too.</p>
3024
3025 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3026 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3027 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3028
3029       </div>
3030       <div class="tags">
3031
3032
3033         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>.
3034
3035
3036       </div>
3037     </div>
3038     <div class="padding"></div>
3039
3040     <div class="entry">
3041       <div class="title">
3042         <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>
3043       </div>
3044       <div class="date">
3045         23rd December 2016
3046       </div>
3047       <div class="body">
3048         <p>I received a very nice Christmas present today.  As my regular
3049 readers probably know, I have been working on the
3050 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the Isenkram
3051 system</a> for many years.  The goal of the Isenkram system is to make
3052 it easier for users to figure out what to install to get a given piece
3053 of hardware to work in Debian, and a key part of this system is a way
3054 to map hardware to packages.  Isenkram have its own mapping database,
3055 and also uses data provided by each package using the AppStream
3056 metadata format.  And today,
3057 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/appstream">AppStream</a> in
3058 Debian learned to look up hardware the same way Isenkram is doing it,
3059 ie using fnmatch():</p>
3060
3061 <p><pre>
3062 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias \
3063   usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
3064 Identifier: pymissile [generic]
3065 Name: pymissile
3066 Summary: Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
3067 Package: pymissile
3068 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias usb:v0694p0002d0000
3069 Identifier: libnxt [generic]
3070 Name: libnxt
3071 Summary: utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick
3072 Package: libnxt
3073 ---
3074 Identifier: t2n [generic]
3075 Name: t2n
3076 Summary: Simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
3077 Package: t2n
3078 ---
3079 Identifier: python-nxt [generic]
3080 Name: python-nxt
3081 Summary: Python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot
3082 Package: python-nxt
3083 ---
3084 Identifier: nbc [generic]
3085 Name: nbc
3086 Summary: C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
3087 Package: nbc
3088 %
3089 </pre></p>
3090
3091 <p>A similar query can be done using the combined AppStream and
3092 Isenkram databases using the isenkram-lookup tool:</p>
3093
3094 <p><pre>
3095 % isenkram-lookup usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
3096 pymissile
3097 % isenkram-lookup usb:v0694p0002d0000
3098 libnxt
3099 nbc
3100 python-nxt
3101 t2n
3102 %
3103 </pre></p>
3104
3105 <p>You can find modalias values relevant for your machine using
3106 <tt>cat $(find /sys/devices/ -name modalias)</tt>.
3107
3108 <p>If you want to make this system a success and help Debian users
3109 make the most of the hardware they have, please
3110 help<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add
3111 AppStream metadata for your package following the guidelines</a>
3112 documented in the wiki.  So far only 11 packages provide such
3113 information, among the several hundred hardware specific packages in
3114 Debian. The Isenkram database on the other hand contain 101 packages,
3115 mostly related to USB dongles.  Most of the packages with hardware
3116 mapping in AppStream are LEGO Mindstorms related, because I have, as
3117 part of my involvement in
3118 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the Debian LEGO
3119 team</a> given priority to making sure LEGO users get proposed the
3120 complete set of packages in Debian for that particular hardware.  The
3121 team also got a nice Christmas present today.  The
3122 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nxt-firmware">nxt-firmware
3123 package</a> made it into Debian.  With this package in place, it is
3124 now possible to use the LEGO Mindstorms NXT unit with only free
3125 software, as the nxt-firmware package contain the source and firmware
3126 binaries for the NXT brick.</p>
3127
3128 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3129 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3130 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3131
3132       </div>
3133       <div class="tags">
3134
3135
3136         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>.
3137
3138
3139       </div>
3140     </div>
3141     <div class="padding"></div>
3142
3143     <div class="entry">
3144       <div class="title">
3145         <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>
3146       </div>
3147       <div class="date">
3148         20th December 2016
3149       </div>
3150       <div class="body">
3151         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
3152 system</a> I wrote two years ago to make it easier in Debian to find
3153 and install packages to get your hardware dongles to work, is still
3154 going strong.  It is a system to look up the hardware present on or
3155 connected to the current system, and map the hardware to Debian
3156 packages.  It can either be done using the tools in isenkram-cli or
3157 using the user space daemon in the isenkram package.  The latter will
3158 notify you, when inserting new hardware, about what packages to
3159 install to get the dongle working.  It will even provide a button to
3160 click on to ask packagekit to install the packages.</p>
3161
3162 <p>Here is an command line example from my Thinkpad laptop:</p>
3163
3164 <p><pre>
3165 % isenkram-lookup
3166 bluez
3167 cheese
3168 ethtool
3169 fprintd
3170 fprintd-demo
3171 gkrellm-thinkbat
3172 hdapsd
3173 libpam-fprintd
3174 pidgin-blinklight
3175 thinkfan
3176 tlp
3177 tp-smapi-dkms
3178 tp-smapi-source
3179 tpb
3180 %
3181 </pre></p>
3182
3183 <p>It can also list the firware package providing firmware requested
3184 by the load kernel modules, which in my case is an empty list because
3185 I have all the firmware my machine need:
3186
3187 <p><pre>
3188 % /usr/sbin/isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
3189 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
3190 %
3191 </pre></p>
3192
3193 <p>The last few days I had a look at several of the around 250
3194 packages in Debian with udev rules.  These seem like good candidates
3195 to install when a given hardware dongle is inserted, and I found
3196 several that should be proposed by isenkram.  I have not had time to
3197 check all of them, but am happy to report that now there are 97
3198 packages packages mapped to hardware by Isenkram.  11 of these
3199 packages provide hardware mapping using AppStream, while the rest are
3200 listed in the modaliases file provided in isenkram.</p>
3201
3202 <p>These are the packages with hardware mappings at the moment.  The
3203 <strong>marked packages</strong> are also announcing their hardware
3204 support using AppStream, for everyone to use:</p>
3205
3206 <p>air-quality-sensor, alsa-firmware-loaders, argyll,
3207 <strong>array-info</strong>, avarice, avrdude, b43-fwcutter,
3208 bit-babbler, bluez, bluez-firmware, <strong>brltty</strong>,
3209 <strong>broadcom-sta-dkms</strong>, calibre, cgminer, cheese, colord,
3210 <strong>colorhug-client</strong>, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux,
3211 dfu-util, dolphin-emu, ekeyd, ethtool, firmware-ipw2x00, fprintd,
3212 fprintd-demo, <strong>galileo</strong>, gkrellm-thinkbat, gphoto2,
3213 gpsbabel, gpsbabel-gui, gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, gr-fcdproplus,
3214 gr-osmosdr, gtkpod, hackrf, hdapsd, hdmi2usb-udev, hpijs-ppds, hplip,
3215 ipw3945-source, ipw3945d, kde-config-tablet, kinect-audio-setup,
3216 <strong>libnxt</strong>, libpam-fprintd, <strong>lomoco</strong>,
3217 madwimax, minidisc-utils, mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mtkbabel,
3218 <strong>nbc</strong>, <strong>nqc</strong>, nut-hal-drivers, ola,
3219 open-vm-toolbox, open-vm-tools, openambit, pcgminer, pcmciautils,
3220 pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, printer-driver-splix,
3221 <strong>pymissile</strong>, python-nxt, qlandkartegt,
3222 qlandkartegt-garmin, rosegarden, rt2x00-source, sispmctl,
3223 soapysdr-module-hackrf, solaar, squeak-plugins-scratch, sunxi-tools,
3224 <strong>t2n</strong>, thinkfan, thinkfinger-tools, tlp, tp-smapi-dkms,
3225 tp-smapi-source, tpb, tucnak, uhd-host, usbmuxd, viking,
3226 virtualbox-ose-guest-x11, w1retap, xawtv, xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse,
3227 xserver-xorg-input-wacom, xserver-xorg-video-qxl,
3228 xserver-xorg-video-vmware, yubikey-personalization and
3229 zd1211-firmware</p>
3230
3231 <p>If you know of other packages, please let me know with a wishlist
3232 bug report against the isenkram-cli package, and ask the package
3233 maintainer to
3234 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add AppStream
3235 metadata according to the guidelines</a> to provide the information
3236 for everyone.  In time, I hope to get rid of the isenkram specific
3237 hardware mapping and depend exclusively on AppStream.</p>
3238
3239 <p>Note, the AppStream metadata for broadcom-sta-dkms is matching too
3240 much hardware, and suggest that the package with with any ethernet
3241 card.  See <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/838735">bug #838735</a> for
3242 the details.  I hope the maintainer find time to address it soon.  In
3243 the mean time I provide an override in isenkram.</p>
3244
3245       </div>
3246       <div class="tags">
3247
3248
3249         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>.
3250
3251
3252       </div>
3253     </div>
3254     <div class="padding"></div>
3255
3256     <div class="entry">
3257       <div class="title">
3258         <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>
3259       </div>
3260       <div class="date">
3261         11th December 2016
3262       </div>
3263       <div class="body">
3264         <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-12-11-nice-oolite.png"/></p>
3265
3266 <p>In my early years, I played
3267 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classic_Elite">the epic game
3268 Elite</a> on my PC.  I spent many months trading and fighting in
3269 space, and reached the 'elite' fighting status before I moved on.  The
3270 original Elite game was available on Commodore 64 and the IBM PC
3271 edition I played had a 64 KB executable.  I am still impressed today
3272 that the authors managed to squeeze both a 3D engine and details about
3273 more than 2000 planet systems across 7 galaxies into a binary so
3274 small.</p>
3275
3276 <p>I have known about <a href="http://www.oolite.org/">the free
3277 software game Oolite inspired by Elite</a> for a while, but did not
3278 really have time to test it properly until a few days ago.  It was
3279 great to discover that my old knowledge about trading routes were
3280 still valid.  But my fighting and flying abilities were gone, so I had
3281 to retrain to be able to dock on a space station.  And I am still not
3282 able to make much resistance when I am attacked by pirates, so I
3283 bougth and mounted the most powerful laser in the rear to be able to
3284 put up at least some resistance while fleeing for my life. :)</p>
3285
3286 <p>When playing Elite in the late eighties, I had to discover
3287 everything on my own, and I had long lists of prices seen on different
3288 planets to be able to decide where to trade what.  This time I had the
3289 advantages of the
3290 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page">Elite wiki</a>,
3291 where information about each planet is easily available with common
3292 price ranges and suggested trading routes.  This improved my ability
3293 to earn money and I have been able to earn enough to buy a lot of
3294 useful equipent in a few days.  I believe I originally played for
3295 months before I could get a docking computer, while now I could get it
3296 after less then a week.</p>
3297
3298 <p>If you like science fiction and dreamed of a life as a vagabond in
3299 space, you should try out Oolite.  It is available for Linux, MacOSX
3300 and Windows, and is included in Debian and derivatives since 2011.</p>
3301
3302 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3303 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3304 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3305
3306       </div>
3307       <div class="tags">
3308
3309
3310         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>.
3311
3312
3313       </div>
3314     </div>
3315     <div class="padding"></div>
3316
3317     <div class="entry">
3318       <div class="title">
3319         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html">Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata</a>
3320       </div>
3321       <div class="date">
3322         25th November 2016
3323       </div>
3324       <div class="body">
3325         <p>Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian
3326 installation system, observing how using
3327 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">eatmydata
3328 could speed up the installation</a> quite a bit.  My testing measured
3329 speedup around 20-40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around
3330 1000 packages from within the installer.  The eatmydata package
3331 provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing.  This is a bit
3332 risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will
3333 stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a
3334 machine crashes at an inconvenient time.  But for an installation, if
3335 the machine crashes during installation the process is normally
3336 restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed
3337 up the process make perfect sense.
3338
3339 <p>I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable
3340 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libeatmydata">eatmydata</a>,
3341 but did not have time to push it any further.  But a few months ago I
3342 picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer
3343 Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation
3344 speedup in Debian.  Thanks to our cooperation There is now an
3345 eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply
3346 enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the
3347 quicker installations.  It can be enabled using preseeding.  The
3348 following untested kernel argument should do the trick:</p>
3349
3350 <blockquote><pre>
3351 preseed/early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
3352 </pre></blockquote>
3353
3354 <p>This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i
3355 environment early in the installation sequence.  Having it installed
3356 in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just
3357 after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian
3358 system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata.  This is enough to
3359 speed up the installation process.  There is a proposal to
3360 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/841153">extend the idea a bit further
3361 by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf</a>, but I have not
3362 tested its impact.</p>
3363
3364
3365       </div>
3366       <div class="tags">
3367
3368
3369         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>.
3370
3371
3372       </div>
3373     </div>
3374     <div class="padding"></div>
3375
3376     <div class="entry">
3377       <div class="title">
3378         <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>
3379       </div>
3380       <div class="date">
3381         24th November 2016
3382       </div>
3383       <div class="body">
3384         <p>I Norge er det mange som trenger å skrive både bokmål og nynorsk.
3385 Eksamensoppgaver, offentlige brev og nyheter er eksempler på tekster
3386 der det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skoleoppgavene som
3387 elever over det ganske land skal levere inn hvert år.  Det mange ikke
3388 vet er at selv om de kommersielle alternativene
3389 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google Translate</a> og
3390 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing Translator</a> ikke kan
3391 bidra med å oversette mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finnes det et
3392 utmerket fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Oversetterverktøyet
3393 Apertium har støtte for en rekke språkkombinasjoner, og takket være
3394 den utrettelige innsatsen til blant annet Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
3395 en bruke webtjenesten til å fylle inn en tekst på bokmål eller
3396 nynorsk, og få den automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
3397 Resultatet er ikke perfekt, men et svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og til
3398 er resultatet så bra at det kan benyttes uten endringer.  Jeg vet
3399 f.eks. at store deler av Joomla ble oversatt til nynorsk ved hjelp
3400 Apertium.  Høres det ut som noe du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så fall
3401 <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
3402 teksten din i webskjemaet der.
3403
3404 <p>Hvis du trenger maskinell tilgang til den bakenforliggende
3405 teknologien kan du enten installere pakken
3406 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">apertium-nno-nob</a>
3407 på en Debian-maskin eller bruke web-API-et tilgjengelig fra
3408 api.apertium.org.  Se
3409 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">API-dokumentasjonen</a>
3410 for detaljer om web-API-et.  Her kan du se hvordan resultatet blir for
3411 denne teksten som ble skrevet på bokmål over maskinoversatt til
3412 nynorsk.</p>
3413
3414 <hr/>
3415
3416 <p>I Noreg er det mange som treng å skriva både bokmål og nynorsk.
3417 Eksamensoppgåver, offentlege brev og nyhende er døme på tekster der
3418 det er krav om skriftspråk.  I tillegg til alle skuleoppgåvene som
3419 elevar over det ganske land skal levera inn kvart år.  Det mange ikkje
3420 veit er at sjølv om dei kommersielle alternativa
3421 <a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google *Translate</a> og
3422 <a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing *Translator</a> ikkje
3423 kan bidra med å omsetja mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finst det eit
3424 utmerka fri programvarealternativ som kan.  Omsetjarverktøyet
3425 *Apertium har støtte for ei rekkje språkkombinasjonar, og takka vera
3426 den utrøyttelege innsatsen til blant anna Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
3427 ein bruka *webtjenesten til å fylla inn ei tekst på bokmål eller
3428 nynorsk, og få den *automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
3429 Resultatet er ikkje perfekt, men eit svært godt utgangspunkt.  Av og
3430 til er resultatet så bra at det kan nyttast utan endringar.  Eg veit
3431 t.d. at store delar av *Joomla vart omsett til nynorsk ved hjelp
3432 *Apertium.  Høyrast det ut som noko du kan ha bruk for?  Besøk i så
3433 fall <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">*Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
3434 teksta di i *webskjemaet der.
3435
3436 <p>Viss du treng *maskinell tilgjenge til den *bakenforliggende
3437 teknologien kan du anten installera pakken
3438 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">*apertium-*nno-*nob</a>
3439 på ein *Debian-maskin eller bruka *web-*API-eit tilgjengeleg frå
3440 *api.*apertium.org.  Sjå
3441 <a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">*API-dokumentasjonen</a>
3442 for detaljar om *web-*API-eit.  Her kan du sjå korleis resultatet vert
3443 for denne teksta som vart skreva på bokmål over *maskinoversatt til
3444 nynorsk.</p>
3445
3446       </div>
3447       <div class="tags">
3448
3449
3450         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>.
3451
3452
3453       </div>
3454     </div>
3455     <div class="padding"></div>
3456
3457     <div class="entry">
3458       <div class="title">
3459         <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>
3460       </div>
3461       <div class="date">
3462         13th November 2016
3463       </div>
3464       <div class="body">
3465         <p><a href="http://coz-profiler.org/">The Coz profiler</a>, a nice
3466 profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented
3467 multi-threaded program, finally
3468 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/coz-profiler">made it into
3469 Debian unstable yesterday</A>.  Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many
3470 months since
3471 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">I
3472 blogged about the coz tool</a> in August working with upstream to make
3473 it suitable for Debian.  There are still issues with clang
3474 compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized
3475 JavaScript libraries.</p>
3476
3477 <p>To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:</p>
3478
3479 <p><blockquote>
3480 <tt>coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info</tt>
3481 </blockquote></p>
3482
3483 <p>This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working
3484 directory with the profiling information.  This is then given to a
3485 JavaScript application provided in the package and available from
3486 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">a project web page</a>.
3487 To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:</p>
3488
3489 <p><blockquote>
3490 <tt>sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm</tt>
3491 </blockquote></p>
3492
3493 <p>See the project home page and the
3494 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">USENIX
3495 ;login: article on Coz</a> for more information on how it is
3496 working.</p>
3497
3498       </div>
3499       <div class="tags">
3500
3501
3502         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>.
3503
3504
3505       </div>
3506     </div>
3507     <div class="padding"></div>
3508
3509     <div class="entry">
3510       <div class="title">
3511         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html">My own self balancing Lego Segway</a>
3512       </div>
3513       <div class="date">
3514          4th November 2016
3515       </div>
3516       <div class="body">
3517         <p>A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT
3518 <a href="mindstorms.lego.com">Mindstorms</a> controller as a birthday
3519 present.  It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to
3520 build a Segway like balancing lego robot.  I had already built
3521 <a href="http://www.nxtprograms.com/NXT2/segway/">a simple balancing
3522 robot</a> with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the
3523 NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well.  It
3524 could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light
3525 condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and
3526 would fall over after a short while.  I wanted something more robust,
3527 and had
3528 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NGY1044">the
3529 gyro sensor from HiTechnic</a> I believed would solve it on my
3530 wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my
3531 loved ones. :)</p>
3532
3533 <p>Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it
3534 since then.  But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for
3535 lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for
3536 building
3537 <a href="http://www.hitechnic.com/blog/gyro-sensor/htway/">the
3538 HTWay</a>, a segway like balancing robot.  Build instructions and
3539 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/upload/786-HTWayC.nxc">source
3540 code</a> was included, so it was just a question of putting it all
3541 together.  And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the
3542 compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in
3543 Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour.  The resulting robot
3544 do not look very impressive in its simplicity:</p>
3545
3546 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-robot.jpeg"></p>
3547
3548 <p>Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the
3549 design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task
3550 (taskControl).  I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program
3551 working without that sensor present.  Now it balances just fine until
3552 the battery status run low:</p>
3553
3554 <p align="center"><video width="70%" controls="true">
3555    <source src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-balancing.ogv" type="video/ogg">
3556 </video></p>
3557
3558 <p>Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote
3559 control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.</p>
3560
3561 <p>If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools
3562 they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative
3563 distributions like Ubuntu, check out
3564 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the LEGO designers
3565 project page</a> and join the Debian LEGO team.  Personally I own a
3566 RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the
3567 Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they
3568 should.</p>
3569
3570       </div>
3571       <div class="tags">
3572
3573
3574         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>.
3575
3576
3577       </div>
3578     </div>
3579     <div class="padding"></div>
3580
3581     <div class="entry">
3582       <div class="title">
3583         <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>
3584       </div>
3585       <div class="date">
3586         10th October 2016
3587       </div>
3588       <div class="body">
3589         <p>In July
3590 <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
3591 wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working</a> without
3592 the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone).  It is
3593 time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.</p>
3594
3595 <p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
3596 it regularly to chat with my loved ones.  I had a major snag at the
3597 end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
3598 setup, identity and keys.  The reason behind this major mess was
3599 running out of disk space.  To avoid that ever happening again I have
3600 started storing everything in <tt>userdata/</tt> in git, to be able to
3601 roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake.  I
3602 had to use it once after introducing the git backup.  When rolling
3603 back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
3604 in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
3605 problem.  I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
3606 protocol to detect rollback attacks.  The git repository is rather big
3607 (674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
3608 content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
3609 time.</p>
3610
3611 <p>I've also hit the 90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
3612 make it impossible to send messages using Signal.  I could still
3613 receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
3614 I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
3615 upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
3616 protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
3617 thus try to keep the number of support requests down.</p>
3618
3619 <p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
3620 making the old patch fail to apply cleanly.  Below is an updated
3621 patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal.  The
3622 original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
3623 and call a function from there.  I got help from a friend with more
3624 JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
3625 button instead.  This mean that to get started you just need to run
3626 the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
3627 now.  I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to 90 days
3628 in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.</p>
3629
3630 <p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:</p>
3631
3632 <ol>
3633
3634 <li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
3635 browser you need.  Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
3636 know, so you need to install it.
3637
3638 <pre>
3639 apt install git tor chromium
3640 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
3641 </pre></li>
3642
3643 <li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
3644 block below.</li>
3645
3646 <li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
3647 <tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app</tt>).
3648
3649 <li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
3650 number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
3651 verification code and enter it into the form field and press
3652 'Register'.  Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
3653 username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.</li>
3654
3655 <li>You can now use Signal to contact others.  Note, new contacts do
3656 not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
3657 no way to assign names to Contacts.  There is also no way to create or
3658 update chat groups.  I suspect this is because the web app do not have
3659 a associated contact database.</li>
3660
3661 </ol>
3662
3663 <p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
3664 main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
3665 corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
3666 Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon).  See for
3667 example
3668 <a href="https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
3669 LibreSignal issue tracker</a> for a thread documenting the authors
3670 view on these issues.  But the network effect is strong in this case,
3671 and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
3672 Signal.  Perhaps we can all move to <a href="https://ring.cx/">Ring</a>
3673 once it <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
3674 laptop</a>?  It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
3675 in <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian</a> and
3676 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu</a>, but not
3677 working on Debian Stable.</p>
3678
3679 <p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
3680 working.  It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
3681 make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:</p>
3682
3683 <pre>
3684 cd Signal-Desktop; cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p1
3685 diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
3686 index 24b4c1d..579345f 100644
3687 --- a/js/background.js
3688 +++ b/js/background.js
3689 @@ -33,9 +33,9 @@
3690          });
3691      });
3692
3693 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
3694 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
3695      var SERVER_PORTS = [80, 4433, 8443];
3696 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
3697 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
3698      var messageReceiver;
3699      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
3700          if (messageReceiver) {
3701 diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
3702 index 639aeae..beb91c3 100644
3703 --- a/js/expire.js
3704 +++ b/js/expire.js
3705 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
3706  ;(function() {
3707      'use strict';
3708 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
3709 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (90 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
3710
3711      window.extension = window.extension || {};
3712
3713 diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
3714 index 7816f4f..1d6233b 100644
3715 --- a/js/views/install_view.js
3716 +++ b/js/views/install_view.js
3717 @@ -38,7 +38,8 @@
3718              return {
3719                  'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this, 1),
3720                  'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this, 2),
3721 -                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3)
3722 +                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3),
3723 +                'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
3724              };
3725          },
3726          clearQR: function() {
3727 diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
3728 index dc0f28e..8d709f6 100644
3729 --- a/options.html
3730 +++ b/options.html
3731 @@ -14,7 +14,10 @@
3732          &lt;div class='nav'>
3733            &lt;h1>{{ installWelcome }}&lt;/h1>
3734            &lt;p>{{ installTagline }}&lt;/p>
3735 -          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a> &lt;/div>
3736 +          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a>
3737 +           &lt;br> &lt;a class="button callreg">Register without mobile phone&lt;/a>
3738 +
3739 +         &lt;/div>
3740            &lt;span class='dot step1 selected'>&lt;/span>
3741            &lt;span class='dot step2'>&lt;/span>
3742            &lt;span class='dot step3'>&lt;/span>
3743 --- /dev/null   2016-10-07 09:55:13.730181472 +0200
3744 +++ b/run-signal-app   2016-10-10 08:54:09.434172391 +0200
3745 @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
3746 +#!/bin/sh
3747 +set -e
3748 +cd $(dirname $0)
3749 +mkdir -p userdata
3750 +userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
3751 +if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
3752 +    (cd $userdata && git init)
3753 +fi
3754 +(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
3755 +exec chromium \
3756 +  --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
3757 +  --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
3758 EOF
3759 chmod a+rx run-signal-app
3760 </pre>
3761
3762 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3763 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3764 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3765
3766       </div>
3767       <div class="tags">
3768
3769
3770         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>.
3771
3772
3773       </div>
3774     </div>
3775     <div class="padding"></div>
3776
3777     <div class="entry">
3778       <div class="title">
3779         <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>
3780       </div>
3781       <div class="date">
3782          7th October 2016
3783       </div>
3784       <div class="body">
3785         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
3786 system</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
3787 packages support the hardware in a given machine.  The command line
3788 tool <tt>isenkram-lookup</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
3789 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
3790 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
3791 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
3792 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
3793 while using the computer.  For example, if you plug in a smart card
3794 reader, the system will ask if you want to install <tt>pcscd</tt> if
3795 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
3796 camera the system will ask if you want to install <tt>cheese</tt> if
3797 cheese is currently missing.  This already work just fine.</p>
3798
3799 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
3800 package names.  When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
3801 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
3802 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
3803 http.  This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
3804 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.</p>
3805
3806 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings.  The modalias
3807 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
3808 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
3809 globbing.  It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
3810 identifiers.</p>
3811
3812 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
3813 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
3814 isenkram propose obsolete packages too.  But along came AppStream, a
3815 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
3816 software packages.  When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
3817 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
3818 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
3819 mapping hardware to packages.  This idea was accepted and AppStream is
3820 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
3821 distribution neutral way.  I wrote
3822 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
3823 recipe on how to add such meta-information</a> in a blog post last
3824 December.  If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
3825 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.</p>
3826
3827 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
3828 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream.  The effect is
3829 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
3830 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
3831 it working.  The intention is that this should allow the local user to
3832 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
3833 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.</p>
3834
3835 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
3836 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
3837 annoying.  The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
3838 the USB device for programming the unit.  This used to work, but no
3839 longer in Jessie and Stretch.  After some investigation and asking
3840 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
3841 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices.  The
3842 ConsoleKit mechanism from <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>
3843 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
3844 plugdev group during login.  Michael Biebl told me that this method
3845 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead.  This was good
3846 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
3847 directory like LDAP.  Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
3848 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
3849 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
3850 setup.  Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
3851 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.</p>
3852
3853 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'.  It can either be
3854 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
3855 /lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices.  As the
3856 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
3857 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages.  Here
3858 is one example.  For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
3859 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/60-nqc.rules</tt> file now look like this:
3860
3861 <p><pre>
3862 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="0001", \
3863     SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
3864 </pre></p>
3865
3866 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end.  I suspect all
3867 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
3868 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
3869 <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>).  Perhaps a lintian check should be created
3870 to detect this?</p>
3871
3872 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
3873 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
3874 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
3875 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>.  If it is, I guess the
3876 indirect method is the preferred way.  Michael
3877 <a href="https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
3878 documentation from the systemd project</a> and I hope it will make
3879 this clearer.  For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
3880 is already handled by <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>, and add the tag
3881 directly if no such class exist.</p>
3882
3883 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
3884 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
3885 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
3886
3887 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
3888 please join us on our IRC channel
3889 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> and join
3890 the <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
3891 LEGO team</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday.  A mailing
3892 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)</p>
3893
3894 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3895 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3896 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3897
3898       </div>
3899       <div class="tags">
3900
3901
3902         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>.
3903
3904
3905       </div>
3906     </div>
3907     <div class="padding"></div>
3908
3909     <div class="entry">
3910       <div class="title">
3911         <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>
3912       </div>
3913       <div class="date">
3914         30th August 2016
3915       </div>
3916       <div class="body">
3917         <p>In April we
3918 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
3919 to work</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
3920 how to set up and administrate a Debian system.  Today I am happy to
3921 report that the first draft is now publicly available.  You can find
3922 it on <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
3923 Administrator's Handbook page</a> (under Other languages).  The first
3924 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
3925 proofreading the content.  If you want to help out, please start
3926 contributing using
3927 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
3928 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
3929 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
3930 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
3931 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
3932 contributors</a>.  A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
3933 and update weblate if you find errors.</p>
3934
3935 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
3936 electronic form.</p>
3937
3938       </div>
3939       <div class="tags">
3940
3941
3942         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>.
3943
3944
3945       </div>
3946     </div>
3947     <div class="padding"></div>
3948
3949     <div class="entry">
3950       <div class="title">
3951         <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>
3952       </div>
3953       <div class="date">
3954         11th August 2016
3955       </div>
3956       <div class="body">
3957         <p>This summer, I read a great article
3958 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
3959 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
3960 how to profile multi-threaded programs.  It presented a system for
3961 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
3962 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up" parts of
3963 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run.  It does this by
3964 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up" code is running
3965 and measure how this affect processing time.  The processing time is
3966 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
3967 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END).  It
3968 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
3969 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
3970
3971 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
3972 get the system into Debian.  I
3973 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=830708">created
3974 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
3975 system ready for Debian by sending patches.  The build process need to
3976 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
3977 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
3978 profiling information included in the source package.
3979 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
3980
3981 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple.  To run an coz experiment
3982 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
3983
3984 <p><blockquote><pre>
3985 coz run --- program-to-run
3986 </pre></blockquote></p>
3987
3988 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
3989 information.  To show what part of the code affect the performance
3990 most, use a web browser and either point it to
3991 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
3992 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch).  Check out this web
3993 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
3994 profiling more useful you include &lt;coz.h&gt; and insert the
3995 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
3996 code, rebuild and run the profiler.  This allow coz to do more
3997 targeted experiments.</p>
3998
3999 <p>A video published by ACM
4000 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg">presenting the
4001 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube.  There is also a paper
4002 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
4003 titled
4004 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger">Coz:
4005 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
4006
4007 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz">The source code</a>
4008 for Coz is available from github.  It will only build with clang
4009 because it uses a
4010 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55606">C++
4011 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
4012 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/67">a patch to solve
4013 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
4014
4015 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
4016 of software in Debian.  I would very much like some help with the
4017 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
4018 C++ libraries.</p>
4019
4020       </div>
4021       <div class="tags">
4022
4023
4024         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>.
4025
4026
4027       </div>
4028     </div>
4029     <div class="padding"></div>
4030
4031     <div class="entry">
4032       <div class="title">
4033         <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>
4034       </div>
4035       <div class="date">
4036          7th July 2016
4037       </div>
4038       <div class="body">
4039         <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
4040 to be a slight challenge.  Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
4041 again.  It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
4042 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy">an
4043 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
4044 device I had access to.  It is a old mobile phone with a broken
4045 microphone The initial idea had been to just
4046 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace">install
4047 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
4048 until a few days ago.</p>
4049
4050 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
4051 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
4052 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
4053 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
4054 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
4055 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/">HTC developer web
4056 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
4057
4058 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
4059 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027.  This
4060 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
4061 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
4062 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not.  So I had to
4063 come up with a different approach.  I got a lot of help from AndyCap
4064 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
4065 him.</p>
4066
4067 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
4068 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00.0029.exe">the
4069 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
4070 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/">a github
4071 project named unruu</a> using libunshield.  The unshield tool did not
4072 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
4073 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
4074 devices it would work for.</p>
4075
4076 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device.  For this I
4077 followed some instructions
4078 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/2013/09/new-ruu-zips-posted/">available
4079 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
4080 machine with Debian testing:</p>
4081
4082 <p><pre>
4083 adb reboot-bootloader
4084 fastboot oem rebootRUU
4085 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
4086 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
4087 fastboot reboot
4088 </pre></p>
4089
4090 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
4091 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
4092 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
4093 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
4094 too.</p>
4095
4096 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
4097 instructions on the HTC developer web site.  I got the device token
4098 like this:</p>
4099
4100 <p><pre>
4101 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
4102 </pre>
4103
4104 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
4105 this:</p>
4106
4107 <p><pre>
4108 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
4109 </pre></p>
4110
4111 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
4112 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
4113 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
4114 before I start.  We will see what happen next.  Perhaps I should
4115 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
4116
4117       </div>
4118       <div class="tags">
4119
4120
4121         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>.
4122
4123
4124       </div>
4125     </div>
4126     <div class="padding"></div>
4127
4128     <div class="entry">
4129       <div class="title">
4130         <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>
4131       </div>
4132       <div class="date">
4133          3rd July 2016
4134       </div>
4135       <div class="body">
4136         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
4137 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/">the Signal app</a>, as it is
4138 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
4139 friends and family are already using it.  As I by choice do not own a
4140 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected.  And I wanted to
4141 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
4142 machine.  But yesterday I managed to get it working.  I used the
4143 Github source, compared it to the source in
4144 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US">the
4145 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
4146 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
4147 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form.  Here is
4148 the recipe how I did it.</p>
4149
4150 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
4151
4152 <pre>
4153 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
4154 </pre>
4155
4156 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
4157 able to talk to other Signal users:</p>
4158
4159 <pre>
4160 cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p0
4161 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js
4162 --- ./js/background.js  2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
4163 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js    2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
4164 @@ -47,8 +47,8 @@
4165          });
4166      });
4167
4168 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
4169 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
4170 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:4433';
4171 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
4172      var messageReceiver;
4173      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
4174          if (messageReceiver) {
4175 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
4176 --- ./js/expire.js      2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
4177 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
4178 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
4179  ;(function() {
4180      'use strict';
4181 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
4182 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 1474492690000;
4183
4184      window.extension = window.extension || {};
4185
4186 EOF
4187 </pre>
4188
4189 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
4190 an expiration timestamp.  This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
4191 It is set 90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
4192 The value is seconds since 1970 times 1000, as far as I can tell.</p>
4193
4194 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
4195 script to launch Signal in Chromium.</p>
4196
4197 <pre>
4198 #!/bin/sh
4199 cd $(dirname $0)
4200 mkdir -p userdata
4201 exec chromium \
4202   --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
4203   --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
4204 </pre>
4205
4206 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
4207 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
4208 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
4209 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
4210 connections if they use source IP address.</p>
4211
4212 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
4213 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
4214 repository.  I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
4215 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
4216 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
4217 registration form.  Then I entered by land line phone number and
4218 pressed 'Call'.  5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
4219 repeated the verification code three times.  After entering the number
4220 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
4221 Signal from my laptop.
4222
4223 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
4224 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
4225 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
4226 setup.  It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
4227 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
4228 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
4229 So better than many options, but not great.  And sadly the usage is
4230 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
4231 to associate it to my home and person.  I would prefer it if only
4232 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal.  There are options
4233 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
4234 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.</p>
4235
4236 <p><strong>Update 2017-01-10</strong>: There is an updated blog post
4237 on this topic in
4238 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience
4239 and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile
4240 phone</a>.</p>
4241
4242       </div>
4243       <div class="tags">
4244
4245
4246         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>.
4247
4248
4249       </div>
4250     </div>
4251     <div class="padding"></div>
4252
4253     <div class="entry">
4254       <div class="title">
4255         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?</a>
4256       </div>
4257       <div class="date">
4258          6th June 2016
4259       </div>
4260       <div class="body">
4261         <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
4262 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
4263 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
4264 MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
4265 the various players claimed support for.  The range was from 55 to 130
4266 MIME types.  I suspect most media formats are supported by all
4267 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
4268 their desktop files.  There are probably also some bogus MIME types
4269 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p>
4270
4271 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
4272 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
4273 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
4274 favorite media player VLC.  The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
4275 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
4276 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
4277 player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p>
4278
4279 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?  It is VLC, followed by
4280 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
4281 kmplayer.  I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
4282 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
4283 toten and parole.</p>
4284
4285 <p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as
4286 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
4287 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
4288 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
4289 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
4290 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo.  Personally I find
4291 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
4292 players in Debian.  As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
4293 formats.</p>
4294
4295       </div>
4296       <div class="tags">
4297
4298
4299         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>.
4300
4301
4302       </div>
4303     </div>
4304     <div class="padding"></div>
4305
4306     <div class="entry">
4307       <div class="title">
4308         <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>
4309       </div>
4310       <div class="date">
4311          5th June 2016
4312       </div>
4313       <div class="body">
4314         <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
4315 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
4316 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine.  I
4317 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
4318 the day before I would give the talk.  The next day I took a plane to
4319 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
4320 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
4321 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file.  I cursed a bit and
4322 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
4323 present when I arrived.  I tested that the saved files could be
4324 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued.  I continued to polish the
4325 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
4326 be loaded into kpresenter.  In the end I had to rewrite the slides
4327 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
4328 shorter.  After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem &ndash;
4329 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
4330 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
4331 program to make slides.  The point I'm trying to make is that we
4332 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
4333 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.</p>
4334
4335 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
4336 files from the desktop file browser?  It is not a uncommon problem.  A
4337 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
4338 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
4339 browser would refuse to open.  No video player claimed to understand
4340 such file.  I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt>
4341 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
4342 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand.  I asked for
4343 <a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
4344 behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead.  I also asked
4345 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
4346 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files.  After a
4347 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
4348 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.</p>
4349
4350 <p>But history repeats itself.  A few days ago I tested the music
4351 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
4352 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
4353 (*.rg).  I've reported <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
4354 rosegarden problem to BTS</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
4355 included in the next upload.  To increase the chance of me remembering
4356 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
4357 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p>
4358
4359 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
4360 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file.  The output from
4361 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
4362 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/).  The file MIME
4363 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
4364 information is collected from
4365 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
4366 desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/.  If there is
4367 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
4368 activated when asking to open a given file.  If there are more, one
4369 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
4370 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar.  In general
4371 this work well.  But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
4372 type (preferably
4373 <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
4374 MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
4375 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
4376 type in its list of supported MIME types.</p>
4377
4378 <p>The <tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml</tt> entry for
4379 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
4380 Shared MIME database</a> look like this:</p>
4381
4382 <p><blockquote><pre>
4383 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
4384 &lt;mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"&gt;
4385   &lt;mime-type type="audio/x-rosegarden"&gt;
4386     &lt;sub-class-of type="application/x-gzip"/&gt;
4387     &lt;comment&gt;Rosegarden project file&lt;/comment&gt;
4388     &lt;glob pattern="*.rg"/&gt;
4389   &lt;/mime-type&gt;
4390 &lt;/mime-info&gt;
4391 </pre></blockquote></p>
4392
4393 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
4394 (it is a gzipped XML file).  Note, it is much better to use an
4395 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
4396 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.</p>
4397
4398 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
4399 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
4400 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:</p>
4401
4402 <p><blockquote><pre>
4403 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
4404 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
4405 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
4406 %
4407 </pre></blockquote></p>
4408
4409 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
4410 MimeType= line.</p>
4411
4412 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
4413 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
4414 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
4415 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
4416 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
4417 support for this MIME type.  If not, please report a bug to have it
4418 fixed. :)</p>
4419
4420       </div>
4421       <div class="tags">
4422
4423
4424         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>.
4425
4426
4427       </div>
4428     </div>
4429     <div class="padding"></div>
4430
4431     <div class="entry">
4432       <div class="title">
4433         <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>
4434       </div>
4435       <div class="date">
4436         25th May 2016
4437       </div>
4438       <div class="body">
4439         <p><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
4440 system</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
4441 related packages.  The idea is to have a database of mappings between
4442 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
4443 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle.  Some use cases
4444 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
4445 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
4446 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
4447 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
4448 install the driver for it.  The system work well, and even have a few
4449 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
4450 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).</p>
4451
4452 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
4453 good documentation and example code on how to use it.  But aptdaemon
4454 is going away and is generally being replaced by
4455 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit</a>,
4456 so Isenkram needed a rewrite.  And today, thanks to the great patch
4457 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
4458 rewrite finally took place.  I've just uploaded a new version of
4459 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
4460 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit.  To check it out,
4461 install the <tt>isenkram</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
4462 and see if it is recognised.</p>
4463
4464 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
4465 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
4466 program.  This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:</p>
4467
4468 <p><blockquote><pre>
4469 % isenkram-lookup
4470 bluez
4471 cheese
4472 fprintd
4473 fprintd-demo
4474 gkrellm-thinkbat
4475 hdapsd
4476 libpam-fprintd
4477 pidgin-blinklight
4478 thinkfan
4479 tleds
4480 tp-smapi-dkms
4481 tp-smapi-source
4482 tpb
4483 %p
4484 </pre></blockquote></p>
4485
4486 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places.  The preferred way
4487 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
4488 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
4489 cross distribution appstream system</a>.
4490 See
4491 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
4492 blog posts about isenkram</a> to learn how to do that.</p>
4493
4494       </div>
4495       <div class="tags">
4496
4497
4498         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>.
4499
4500
4501       </div>
4502     </div>
4503     <div class="padding"></div>
4504
4505     <div class="entry">
4506       <div class="title">
4507         <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>
4508       </div>
4509       <div class="date">
4510         23rd May 2016
4511       </div>
4512       <div class="body">
4513         <p>Yesterday I updated the
4514 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
4515 package in Debian</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
4516 enterprising users.  There were some nice user and visible changes.
4517 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work.  A design flaw in
4518 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
4519 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
4520 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
4521 called from the desktop menu.  I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
4522 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
4523 graph window pop up as expected.</p>
4524
4525 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
4526 graphs (the one showing the last few hours).  New is also the user of
4527 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red.  The percentages
4528 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
4529 capacity.</p>
4530
4531 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
4532
4533 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
4534 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
4535 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time.  The red
4536 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers 100 percent:
4537
4538 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
4539
4540 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to 80
4541 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
4542 shrinking. :(</p>
4543
4544 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
4545 more hardware models.  On some hardware, Linux power supply
4546 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
4547 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/.  Now
4548 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
4549 machine.</p>
4550
4551 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
4552 check out the
4553 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
4554 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
4555 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from <a
4556 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
4557 Patches are very welcome.</p>
4558
4559 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4560 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4561 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4562
4563       </div>
4564       <div class="tags">
4565
4566
4567         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>.
4568
4569
4570       </div>
4571     </div>
4572     <div class="padding"></div>
4573
4574     <div class="entry">
4575       <div class="title">
4576         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included</a>
4577       </div>
4578       <div class="date">
4579         12th May 2016
4580       </div>
4581       <div class="body">
4582         <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
4583 <a href="http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux</a> finally entered
4584 Debian.  The package status can be seen on
4585 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
4586 for zfs-linux</a>.  and
4587 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
4588 team status page</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
4589 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
4590 source code</a> is available via git on Alioth.  It would also be
4591 great if you could help out with
4592 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package</a>, as
4593 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.</p>
4594
4595       </div>
4596       <div class="tags">
4597
4598
4599         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>.
4600
4601
4602       </div>
4603     </div>
4604     <div class="padding"></div>
4605
4606     <div class="entry">
4607       <div class="title">
4608         <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>
4609       </div>
4610       <div class="date">
4611          8th May 2016
4612       </div>
4613       <div class="body">
4614         <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
4615 Debian claim support for most file formats.</strong></p>
4616
4617 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
4618 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
4619 Edu.  I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
4620 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
4621 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
4622 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
4623 result</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
4624 not been updated for a while.  But browser plugins are less relevant
4625 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
4626 players.</p>
4627
4628 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
4629 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
4630 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why.  The cause is a
4631 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
4632 desktop file</a>.  In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
4633 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
4634 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
4635 two for VLC.  This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
4636 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
4637 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
4638 support most file formats.</p>
4639
4640 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
4641 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
4642 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
4643 in the table</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
4644 listed first in the table.</p>
4645
4646 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian?  It is totem, followed by
4647 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
4648 kmplayer.  Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
4649 support?</p>
4650
4651       </div>
4652       <div class="tags">
4653
4654
4655         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>.
4656
4657
4658       </div>
4659     </div>
4660     <div class="padding"></div>
4661
4662     <div class="entry">
4663       <div class="title">
4664         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled</a>
4665       </div>
4666       <div class="date">
4667          4th May 2016
4668       </div>
4669       <div class="body">
4670         A friend of mine made me aware of
4671 <a href="https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra</a>, a
4672 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled.  I
4673 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)</p>
4674
4675 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
4676 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a 5"
4677 LCD touch screen.  The 6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
4678 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
4679 confirming this.  The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
4680 last I heard last night was that 22 more orders were needed before
4681 production started.</p>
4682
4683 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
4684 Debian.  Please let me know if you know of any others.  Is it the
4685 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?</p>
4686
4687       </div>
4688       <div class="tags">
4689
4690
4691         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>.
4692
4693
4694       </div>
4695     </div>
4696     <div class="padding"></div>
4697
4698     <div class="entry">
4699       <div class="title">
4700         <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>
4701       </div>
4702       <div class="date">
4703         10th April 2016
4704       </div>
4705       <div class="body">
4706         <p>During this weekends
4707 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
4708 squashing party and developer gathering</a>, we decided to do our part
4709 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
4710 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
4711 <a href="http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
4712 project</a> to get started.  If you want to help out, please start
4713 contributing using
4714 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
4715 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
4716 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
4717 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
4718 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
4719 contributors</a>.</p>
4720
4721 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
4722 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
4723 Bokmål too.  In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
4724 Mobi versions available.  And there are incomplete translations
4725 available for many more languages.</p>
4726
4727       </div>
4728       <div class="tags">
4729
4730
4731         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>.
4732
4733
4734       </div>
4735     </div>
4736     <div class="padding"></div>
4737
4738     <div class="entry">
4739       <div class="title">
4740         <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>
4741       </div>
4742       <div class="date">
4743          7th April 2016
4744       </div>
4745       <div class="body">
4746         <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
4747 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found.  I use
4748 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
4749 But I might be wrong.</p>
4750
4751 <p>According to
4752 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
4753 results for spl-linux</a>, there are 1019 Debian installations, or
4754 0.53% of the population, with the package installed.  As far as I know
4755 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
4756 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
4757 installation on Linux in Debian.  In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
4758 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
4759 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
4760 results for zfsutils</a> show 1625 Debian installations or 0.84% of
4761 the population.  So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.</p>
4762
4763 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
4764 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
4765 in April 2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
4766 cleared, the package is still not in Debian.  The package is again in
4767 the NEW queue.  Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
4768 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
4769 to give up.  The current status can be seen on
4770 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
4771 team status page</a>, and
4772 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
4773 source code</a> is available on Alioth.</p>
4774
4775 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
4776 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
4777 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
4778 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
4779 to help out the team.  This was the background for my blog post about
4780 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
4781 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>, and I
4782 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
4783 copyright file.  It is not very easy to check every one of the around
4784 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
4785 right.  If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
4786 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.</p>
4787
4788       </div>
4789       <div class="tags">
4790
4791
4792         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>.
4793
4794
4795       </div>
4796     </div>
4797     <div class="padding"></div>
4798
4799     <div class="entry">
4800       <div class="title">
4801         <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>
4802       </div>
4803       <div class="date">
4804         23rd March 2016
4805       </div>
4806       <div class="body">
4807         <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
4808 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
4809 later processing and graphing.  The original collector store the
4810 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
4811 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
4812 full level, last full level and current battery level.  This make it
4813 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
4814 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.</p>
4815
4816 <p>The new tools are available in <tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/</tt>
4817 in the version 0.5.1 package in unstable.  Get the new battery level graph
4818 and lifetime prediction by running:
4819
4820 <p><pre>
4821 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
4822 </pre></p>
4823
4824 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.</p>
4825
4826 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
4827 entry yet):</p>
4828
4829 <p><pre>
4830 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
4831 </pre></p>
4832
4833 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
4834 when there are few data points.  The graphs look a bit better with a
4835 few years of data.</p>
4836
4837 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
4838 collector broke in Debian.  The scripts in
4839 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/</tt> were no longer executed.  I
4840 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
4841 know.  The issue is reported as
4842 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #818649</a> against
4843 pm-utils.  I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
4844 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
4845 disconnected.  With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
4846 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.</p>
4847
4848 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
4849 check out the
4850 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
4851 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
4852 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
4853 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
4854 As always, patches are very welcome.</p>
4855
4856       </div>
4857       <div class="tags">
4858
4859
4860         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>.
4861
4862
4863       </div>
4864     </div>
4865     <div class="padding"></div>
4866
4867     <div class="entry">
4868       <div class="title">
4869         <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>
4870       </div>
4871       <div class="date">
4872         15th March 2016
4873       </div>
4874       <div class="body">
4875         <p>Back in September, I blogged about
4876 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
4877 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
4878 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced).  I
4879 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
4880 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
4881 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
4882 package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
4883 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
4884 fixed instead.  I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
4885 hoped someone would step in and fix it.  But no-one did.</p>
4886
4887 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
4888 hands.  The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
4889 battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
4890 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
4891 able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
4892 information provided by the Linux kernel.  If you install the
4893 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
4894 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
4895 status of the battery.  The source package build and work just fine in
4896 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
4897 tested).  The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
4898
4899 <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>
4900
4901 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
4902 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
4903 about the battery.  The scripts are merged into the upstream
4904 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
4905 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way.  Will have to test a
4906 bit more before I make a new release.</p>
4907
4908 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
4909 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
4910 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
4911 and graphing.</p>
4912
4913 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
4914 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
4915 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
4916 on
4917 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
4918 I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
4919
4920       </div>
4921       <div class="tags">
4922
4923
4924         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>.
4925
4926
4927       </div>
4928     </div>
4929     <div class="padding"></div>
4930
4931     <div class="entry">
4932       <div class="title">
4933         <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>
4934       </div>
4935       <div class="date">
4936         19th February 2016
4937       </div>
4938       <div class="body">
4939         <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
4940 details.  And one of the details is the content of the
4941 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
4942 the code in the package in question, preferably in
4943 <a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
4944 readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
4945
4946 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
4947 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
4948 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters.  So getting it right
4949 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
4950 both you and the ftpmasters some work..  Today, while trying to figure
4951 out what was wrong with
4952 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
4953 zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
4954 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
4955 semi-automatically.</p>
4956
4957 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
4958 file based on the code in the source package,
4959 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
4960 and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>.  I'm
4961 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
4962 create a sensible draft file.  As far as I can tell, none of them can
4963 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
4964 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload.  I found the debmake
4965 option in
4966 <a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
4967 blog posts from 2014</a>.
4968
4969 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
4970
4971 <p><pre>
4972 debmake -cc > debian/copyright
4973 </pre></p>
4974
4975 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
4976 this might not be the best option.</p>
4977
4978 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
4979 this approach in
4980 <a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
4981 blog post from 2015</a>.  To generate using cme, use the 'update
4982 dpkg-copyright' option:
4983
4984 <p><pre>
4985 cme update dpkg-copyright
4986 </pre></p>
4987
4988 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright.  The cme tool seem to
4989 handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
4990
4991 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
4992 check if the file is correct.  For this I found two good options,
4993 <tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>.  The former seem
4994 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
4995 ineffective blocks in the copyright file.  The latter reports missing
4996 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
4997 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0).  I suspect it is good to use both and
4998 fix all issues reported by them before uploading.  But I do not know
4999 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
5000 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
5001
5002 <p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning.  It
5003 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
5004 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
5005 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
5006
5007 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
5008 debian/copyright file.  Please let me know, or blog about it on
5009 planet.debian.org.</p>
5010
5011 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5012 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5013 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5014
5015 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
5016 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
5017
5018 <p><pre>
5019 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
5020   /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
5021 </pre></p>
5022
5023 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
5024 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
5025 copyright changes in the upstream source.  I will try to do the same
5026 with my packages in the future.</p>
5027
5028 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
5029 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
5030 command line.</p>
5031
5032       </div>
5033       <div class="tags">
5034
5035
5036         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>.
5037
5038
5039       </div>
5040     </div>
5041     <div class="padding"></div>
5042
5043     <div class="entry">
5044       <div class="title">
5045         <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>
5046       </div>
5047       <div class="date">
5048          4th February 2016
5049       </div>
5050       <div class="body">
5051         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
5052 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
5053 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
5054 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it.  This can
5055 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
5056 about. :)</p>
5057
5058 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
5059 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
5060 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
5061 unstable.  In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
5062 by the kernel during kernel module loading.  To find the package
5063 providing the example file, do like this:</p>
5064
5065 <blockquote><pre>
5066 % apt install appstream
5067 [...]
5068 % apt update
5069 [...]
5070 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
5071   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
5072 firmware-qlogic
5073 %
5074 </pre></blockquote>
5075
5076 <p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
5077 appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
5078 a way appstream can use.</p>
5079
5080 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
5081 given MIME type.  This is very useful when you get a file you do not
5082 know how to handle.  First find the mime type using <tt>file
5083 --mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
5084 it.  Lets say you got an SVG file.  Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
5085 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
5086
5087 <blockquote><pre>
5088 % apt install appstream
5089 [...]
5090 % apt update
5091 [...]
5092 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
5093   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
5094 bkchem
5095 phototonic
5096 inkscape
5097 shutter
5098 tetzle
5099 geeqie
5100 xia
5101 pinta
5102 gthumb
5103 karbon
5104 comix
5105 mirage
5106 viewnior
5107 postr
5108 ristretto
5109 kolourpaint4
5110 eog
5111 eom
5112 gimagereader
5113 midori
5114 %
5115 </pre></blockquote>
5116
5117 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
5118 packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
5119
5120       </div>
5121       <div class="tags">
5122
5123
5124         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>.
5125
5126
5127       </div>
5128     </div>
5129     <div class="padding"></div>
5130
5131     <div class="entry">
5132       <div class="title">
5133         <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>
5134       </div>
5135       <div class="date">
5136         24th January 2016
5137       </div>
5138       <div class="body">
5139         <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
5140 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
5141 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
5142 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent).  And if their
5143 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
5144 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
5145 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
5146 during installation).  And when these programs send out information to
5147 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
5148 extra care is taken to not send the location.  The provided
5149 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
5150 good and bad, depend on your point of view).  What is certain, is that
5151 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
5152 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
5153 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
5154 entities.</p>
5155
5156 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
5157
5158 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
5159 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing.  It is
5160 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
5161 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
5162 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information.  But the
5163 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
5164 tool to do so is called
5165 <a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>.  I
5166 discovered it when I read
5167 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
5168 article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
5169 November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
5170 The python program was in Debian, but
5171 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
5172 Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained.  I
5173 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
5174 have time to fix it then.  This Christmas I decided to finally try to
5175 get Creepy operational in Debian.  Now a fixed version is available in
5176 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
5177 are now included
5178 <a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
5179
5180 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
5181 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
5182 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
5183 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
5184 these services.  Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
5185 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
5186 days it is impossible.  This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
5187 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
5188 information to them about your search interests.  This should be taken
5189 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
5190 about yourself with the services.</p>
5191
5192 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
5193 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
5194 of Norway.  One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
5195 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
5196 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
5197 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
5198 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
5199 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
5200 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
5201 things.  A similar technique have been
5202 <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
5203 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
5204 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
5205 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
5206 public.</p>
5207
5208 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
5209 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
5210 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
5211 python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
5212
5213 <p>(I have uploaded
5214 <a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
5215 screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
5216 Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
5217
5218       </div>
5219       <div class="tags">
5220
5221
5222         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>.
5223
5224
5225       </div>
5226     </div>
5227     <div class="padding"></div>
5228
5229     <div class="entry">
5230       <div class="title">
5231         <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>
5232       </div>
5233       <div class="date">
5234         15th January 2016
5235       </div>
5236       <div class="body">
5237         <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
5238 <a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
5239 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
5240 believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
5241 security fix from a Debian mirror.  This is a good reason to always
5242 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
5243 listening do not know which IP address to attack.  In August, Richard
5244 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
5245 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
5246 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
5247 <a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
5248 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>.  He
5249 was not the first to propose this, as the
5250 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
5251 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
5252 to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
5253 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
5254
5255 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
5256 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
5257 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
5258 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
5259 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
5260
5261 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
5262 installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
5263 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
5264 of the official Debian mirror site.  I recommend installing
5265 <tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
5266 done in /etc/.</p>
5267
5268 <blockquote><pre>
5269 apt install apt-transport-tor
5270 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
5271 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
5272 </pre></blockquote>
5273
5274 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
5275 the sed commands for these too.  The sed command is assuming your are
5276 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror.  Adjust the command (or just
5277 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
5278
5279 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later.  Note that tools like
5280 <tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
5281 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs.  For
5282 <tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
5283 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable.  So if you
5284 need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
5285
5286 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
5287 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
5288 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
5289 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine.  Using Tor will
5290 become normal for the machine in question.</p>
5291
5292 <p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
5293 is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
5294 enabled.  It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
5295 system.</p>
5296
5297       </div>
5298       <div class="tags">
5299
5300
5301         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>.
5302
5303
5304       </div>
5305     </div>
5306     <div class="padding"></div>
5307
5308     <div class="entry">
5309       <div class="title">
5310         <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>
5311       </div>
5312       <div class="date">
5313         23rd December 2015
5314       </div>
5315       <div class="body">
5316         <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
5317 call the car license plate numbers in those days.  I would write the
5318 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
5319 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
5320 exotic or special region codes and numbers.  It was a fun game to pass
5321 time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
5322
5323 <p>A few days I came across
5324 <a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
5325 project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
5326 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
5327 "car numbers" in a machine readable format.  I've been looking for
5328 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
5329 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
5330 number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
5331 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
5332 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance.  I
5333 discovered the developer
5334 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
5335 Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
5336 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
5337 archive.</p>
5338
5339 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
5340 it into Debian, where it currently
5341 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
5342 in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
5343
5344 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
5345 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
5346 surveillance system?  Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
5347 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
5348 when number plates on my watch list are discovered.  Another use case
5349 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
5350 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
5351 car.  When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
5352 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
5353 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway.  I
5354 guess for such use case it make sense.  I am sure there are other use
5355 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
5356
5357 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
5358 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
5359 before running "debuild" to build the source.  Or wait a bit until the
5360 package show up in unstable.</p>
5361
5362       </div>
5363       <div class="tags">
5364
5365
5366         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>.
5367
5368
5369       </div>
5370     </div>
5371     <div class="padding"></div>
5372
5373     <div class="entry">
5374       <div class="title">
5375         <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>
5376       </div>
5377       <div class="date">
5378         20th December 2015
5379       </div>
5380       <div class="body">
5381         <p>Around three years ago, I created
5382 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
5383 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
5384 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
5385 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
5386 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
5387 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
5388 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
5389 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
5390 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
5391 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
5392 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
5393 with.</p>
5394
5395 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
5396 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
5397 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
5398 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
5399 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
5400 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
5401 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
5402 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
5403 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
5404 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
5405 Debian version of appstream.</p>
5406
5407 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
5408 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
5409 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
5410 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
5411 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
5412 how do add the required
5413 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
5414 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
5415 this content:</p>
5416
5417 <blockquote><pre>
5418 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
5419 &lt;component&gt;
5420   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
5421   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
5422   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
5423   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
5424   &lt;description&gt;
5425     &lt;p&gt;
5426       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
5427       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
5428       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
5429       launcher.
5430     &lt;/p&gt;
5431   &lt;/description&gt;
5432   &lt;provides&gt;
5433     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
5434   &lt;/provides&gt;
5435 &lt;/component&gt;
5436 </pre></blockquote>
5437
5438 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
5439 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
5440 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
5441 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
5442 0202.</p>
5443
5444 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
5445 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
5446 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
5447 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
5448 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
5449 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
5450 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
5451 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
5452
5453 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
5454 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
5455 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
5456 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
5457 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
5458
5459 <blockquote><pre>
5460 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
5461 </pre></blockquote>
5462
5463 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
5464 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
5465 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
5466 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
5467 question.</p>
5468
5469 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
5470 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
5471
5472 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
5473 try running this command on the command line:</p>
5474
5475 <blockquote><pre>
5476 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
5477 </pre></blockquote>
5478
5479 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
5480 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
5481 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
5482
5483       </div>
5484       <div class="tags">
5485
5486
5487         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>.
5488
5489
5490       </div>
5491     </div>
5492     <div class="padding"></div>
5493
5494     <div class="entry">
5495       <div class="title">
5496         <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>
5497       </div>
5498       <div class="date">
5499         30th November 2015
5500       </div>
5501       <div class="body">
5502         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
5503 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
5504 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
5505 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
5506 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
5507
5508 <blockquote>
5509
5510 <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>
5511
5512 <blockquote>
5513 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
5514
5515 The first step is to choose a
5516 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
5517 code.<br/>
5518
5519 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
5520 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
5521
5522 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
5523 work<br/>
5524
5525 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
5526 </blockquote>
5527
5528 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
5529 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
5530 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
5531 0x57</a></small></p>
5532
5533 <p>As the Debian Website
5534 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
5535 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
5536 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
5537 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
5538 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
5539 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
5540 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
5541 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
5542 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
5543 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
5544 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
5545 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
5546 Freedom">FaiF</a>
5547 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
5548 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
5549 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
5550 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
5551 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
5552 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
5553 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
5554 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
5555 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
5556 In March the SFC supported a
5557 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
5558 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
5559 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
5560 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
5561 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
5562 conferences
5563 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
5564 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
5565 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
5566 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
5567 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
5568 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
5569 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
5570 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
5571 Software.</p>
5572
5573 <p>If you support Free Software,
5574 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
5575 what the SFC do, agree with their
5576 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
5577 principles</a>, are happy about their
5578 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
5579 work on a project that is an SFC
5580 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
5581 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
5582 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
5583 Allan Webber</a>,
5584 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
5585 Smith</a>,
5586 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
5587 Bacon</a>, myself and
5588 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
5589 becoming a
5590 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
5591 next week your donation will be
5592 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
5593 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
5594 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
5595 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
5596 social media accounts.</p>
5597
5598 </blockquote>
5599
5600 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
5601 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
5602 supporter too?</p>
5603
5604       </div>
5605       <div class="tags">
5606
5607
5608         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>.
5609
5610
5611       </div>
5612     </div>
5613     <div class="padding"></div>
5614
5615     <div class="entry">
5616       <div class="title">
5617         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
5618       </div>
5619       <div class="date">
5620         17th November 2015
5621       </div>
5622       <div class="body">
5623         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
5624 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
5625 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
5626 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
5627 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
5628 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
5629 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
5630 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
5631 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
5632 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
5633
5634 <pre>
5635 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
5636       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
5637 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
5638 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
5639 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
5640 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
5641 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
5642 </pre>
5643
5644 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
5645 my old key.</p>
5646
5647 <p>If you signed my old key
5648 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
5649 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
5650 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
5651 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
5652
5653       </div>
5654       <div class="tags">
5655
5656
5657         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>.
5658
5659
5660       </div>
5661     </div>
5662     <div class="padding"></div>
5663
5664     <div class="entry">
5665       <div class="title">
5666         <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>
5667       </div>
5668       <div class="date">
5669         24th September 2015
5670       </div>
5671       <div class="body">
5672         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
5673 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
5674 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
5675 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
5676 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
5677 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
5678 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
5679
5680 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
5681
5682 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
5683 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
5684 by someone else.  I found
5685 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
5686 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
5687 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
5688 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
5689 from him.  Via
5690 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
5691 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
5692 discovered
5693 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
5694 available in Debian.</p>
5695
5696 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
5697 battery stats ever since. Now my
5698 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
5699 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
5700 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
5701 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
5702
5703 <pre>
5704 #!/bin/sh
5705 # Inspired by
5706 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
5707 # See also
5708 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
5709 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
5710
5711 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
5712     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
5713
5714 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
5715     (
5716         printf "timestamp,"
5717         for f in $files; do
5718             printf "%s," $f
5719         done
5720         echo
5721     ) > "$logfile"
5722 fi
5723
5724 log_battery() {
5725     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
5726     # when several log processes run in parallel.
5727     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
5728         for f in $files; do \
5729             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
5730         done)
5731     echo "$msg"
5732 }
5733
5734 cd /sys/class/power_supply
5735
5736 for bat in BAT*; do
5737     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
5738 done
5739 </pre>
5740
5741 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
5742 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
5743 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
5744 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
5745 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
5746 The code for the Debian package
5747 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
5748 available on github</a>.</p>
5749
5750 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
5751
5752 <pre>
5753 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
5754 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
5755 [...]
5756 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
5757 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
5758 </pre>
5759
5760 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
5761 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
5762 battery.</p>
5763
5764 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
5765 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
5766 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
5767 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
5768 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
5769 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
5770 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
5771 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
5772 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
5773 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
5774 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
5775 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
5776 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
5777 Linux too.</p>
5778
5779 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
5780 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
5781 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
5782 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
5783 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
5784 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
5785 load).</p>
5786
5787 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
5788 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
5789 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
5790 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
5791 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
5792 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
5793 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
5794 those.</p>
5795
5796 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
5797 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
5798 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
5799 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
5800 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
5801 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
5802 specific.</p>
5803
5804       </div>
5805       <div class="tags">
5806
5807
5808         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>.
5809
5810
5811       </div>
5812     </div>
5813     <div class="padding"></div>
5814
5815     <div class="entry">
5816       <div class="title">
5817         <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>
5818       </div>
5819       <div class="date">
5820          5th July 2015
5821       </div>
5822       <div class="body">
5823         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
5824 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
5825 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
5826 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
5827 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
5828 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
5829 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
5830 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
5831 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
5832 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
5833 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
5834
5835 <p>One tip I got was to use the
5836 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
5837 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
5838 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
5839 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
5840 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
5841 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
5842
5843 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
5844 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
5845 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
5846 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
5847 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
5848 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
5849 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
5850 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
5851 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
5852 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
5853 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
5854 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
5855 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
5856 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
5857 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
5858
5859 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
5860 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
5861 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
5862 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
5863
5864 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
5865 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
5866
5867 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
5868 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
5869 different
5870 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
5871 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
5872
5873       </div>
5874       <div class="tags">
5875
5876
5877         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>.
5878
5879
5880       </div>
5881     </div>
5882     <div class="padding"></div>
5883
5884     <div class="entry">
5885       <div class="title">
5886         <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>
5887       </div>
5888       <div class="date">
5889          3rd July 2015
5890       </div>
5891       <div class="body">
5892         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
5893 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
5894 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
5895 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
5896 flickering.</p>
5897
5898 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
5899 still as
5900 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
5901 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
5902 good help from
5903 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
5904 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
5905 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
5906 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
5907 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
5908 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
5909 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
5910 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
5911 deteriorated since X41.</p>
5912
5913 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
5914 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
5915 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
5916 have suggestions.</p>
5917
5918 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
5919 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
5920 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
5921
5922       </div>
5923       <div class="tags">
5924
5925
5926         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>.
5927
5928
5929       </div>
5930     </div>
5931     <div class="padding"></div>
5932
5933     <div class="entry">
5934       <div class="title">
5935         <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>
5936       </div>
5937       <div class="date">
5938         22nd November 2014
5939       </div>
5940       <div class="body">
5941         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
5942 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
5943 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
5944 courtesy of
5945 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
5946 Schubert</a> and
5947 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
5948 McVittie</a>.
5949
5950 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
5951 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
5952 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
5953 you upgrade:</p>
5954
5955 <p><blockquote><pre>
5956 Package: systemd-sysv
5957 Pin: release o=Debian
5958 Pin-Priority: -1
5959 </pre></blockquote><p>
5960
5961 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
5962 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
5963 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
5964 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
5965 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
5966
5967 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
5968 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
5969 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
5970 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
5971 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
5972 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
5973
5974 <p><blockquote><pre>
5975 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
5976 </pre></blockquote><p>
5977
5978 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
5979
5980 <p><blockquote><pre>
5981 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
5982 </pre></blockquote><p>
5983
5984 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
5985 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
5986
5987 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
5988 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
5989 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
5990 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
5991 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
5992 Jessie is released.</p>
5993
5994 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
5995 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
5996 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
5997 line.</p>
5998
5999       </div>
6000       <div class="tags">
6001
6002
6003         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>.
6004
6005
6006       </div>
6007     </div>
6008     <div class="padding"></div>
6009
6010     <div class="entry">
6011       <div class="title">
6012         <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>
6013       </div>
6014       <div class="date">
6015         10th November 2014
6016       </div>
6017       <div class="body">
6018         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
6019 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
6020 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
6021
6022 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
6023 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
6024 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
6025 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
6026 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
6027 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
6028 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
6029 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
6030 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
6031 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
6032 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
6033 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
6034 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
6035 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
6036 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
6037
6038 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
6039 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
6040 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
6041 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
6042 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
6043 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
6044 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
6045 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
6046 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
6047 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
6048 were fairly easy, and
6049 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
6050 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
6051 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
6052 useful approach.</p>
6053
6054 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
6055 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
6056 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
6057 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
6058 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
6059 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
6060 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
6061 this:</p>
6062
6063 <p><blockquote><pre>
6064 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
6065   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
6066 </pre></blockquote></p>
6067
6068 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
6069 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
6070
6071 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
6072 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
6073 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
6074 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
6075 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
6076 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
6077 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
6078 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
6079 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
6080 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
6081 system.</p>
6082
6083 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
6084 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
6085 SMTorP. :)</p>
6086
6087       </div>
6088       <div class="tags">
6089
6090
6091         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>.
6092
6093
6094       </div>
6095     </div>
6096     <div class="padding"></div>
6097
6098     <div class="entry">
6099       <div class="title">
6100         <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>
6101       </div>
6102       <div class="date">
6103         22nd October 2014
6104       </div>
6105       <div class="body">
6106         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
6107 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
6108 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
6109 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
6110 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
6111 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
6112 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
6113 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
6114 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
6115 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
6116 lists I recently took over:</p>
6117
6118 <p><blockquote><pre>
6119 % time listadmin xiph
6120 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
6121 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
6122
6123 real    0m1.709s
6124 user    0m0.232s
6125 sys     0m0.012s
6126 %
6127 </pre></blockquote></p>
6128
6129 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
6130 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
6131 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
6132 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
6133 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
6134 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
6135 program.</p>
6136
6137 <p>If you install
6138 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
6139 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
6140 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
6141
6142 <p><blockquote><pre>
6143 username username@example.org
6144 spamlevel 23
6145 default discard
6146 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
6147
6148 password secret
6149 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
6150 mailman-list@lists.example.com
6151
6152 password hidden
6153 other-list@otherserver.example.org
6154 </pre></blockquote></p>
6155
6156 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
6157 learn the details.</p>
6158
6159 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
6160 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
6161 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
6162 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
6163
6164 <p><blockquote><pre>
6165 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
6166 </pre></blockquote></p>
6167
6168 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
6169 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
6170 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
6171 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
6172 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
6173 email.</p>
6174
6175 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
6176 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
6177 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
6178 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
6179 software.</p>
6180
6181 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6182 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6183 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6184
6185 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
6186 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
6187 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
6188 sure why.</p>
6189
6190       </div>
6191       <div class="tags">
6192
6193
6194         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>.
6195
6196
6197       </div>
6198     </div>
6199     <div class="padding"></div>
6200
6201     <div class="entry">
6202       <div class="title">
6203         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
6204       </div>
6205       <div class="date">
6206         17th October 2014
6207       </div>
6208       <div class="body">
6209         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
6210 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
6211 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
6212 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
6213 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
6214 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
6215 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
6216
6217 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
6218 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
6219 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
6220 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
6221 of this story.)</p>
6222
6223 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
6224 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
6225 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
6226 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
6227 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
6228 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
6229 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
6230 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
6231 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
6232 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
6233
6234 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
6235 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
6236 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
6237 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
6238
6239 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
6240 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
6241
6242 <p><blockquote><pre>
6243 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
6244 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
6245 </pre></blockquote></p>
6246
6247 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
6248 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
6249 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
6250 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
6251 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
6252 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
6253 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
6254 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
6255
6256 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
6257 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
6258
6259 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
6260 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
6261 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
6262 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
6263 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
6264
6265 <p><blockquote><pre>
6266 Task: isenkram-packages
6267 Section: hardware
6268 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
6269  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
6270  proposed.
6271 Test-new-install: show show
6272 Relevance: 8
6273 Packages: for-current-hardware
6274
6275 Task: isenkram-firmware
6276 Section: hardware
6277 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
6278  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
6279  packages are proposed.
6280 Test-new-install: mark show
6281 Relevance: 8
6282 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
6283 </pre></blockquote></p>
6284
6285 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
6286 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
6287 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
6288 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
6289 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
6290
6291 <p><blockquote><pre>
6292 #!/bin/sh
6293 #
6294 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
6295 export PATH
6296 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
6297 </pre></blockquote></p>
6298
6299 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
6300 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
6301
6302 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
6303 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
6304 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
6305 install.</p>
6306
6307 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
6308 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
6309 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
6310
6311       </div>
6312       <div class="tags">
6313
6314
6315         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>.
6316
6317
6318       </div>
6319     </div>
6320     <div class="padding"></div>
6321
6322     <div class="entry">
6323       <div class="title">
6324         <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>
6325       </div>
6326       <div class="date">
6327          4th October 2014
6328       </div>
6329       <div class="body">
6330         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
6331 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
6332 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
6333 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
6334
6335 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
6336
6337 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
6338 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
6339 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
6340
6341       </div>
6342       <div class="tags">
6343
6344
6345         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>.
6346
6347
6348       </div>
6349     </div>
6350     <div class="padding"></div>
6351
6352     <div class="entry">
6353       <div class="title">
6354         <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>
6355       </div>
6356       <div class="date">
6357          4th October 2014
6358       </div>
6359       <div class="body">
6360         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
6361 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
6362 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
6363 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
6364 Dibb.</p>
6365
6366 <p>I just wrapped up
6367 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
6368 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
6369 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
6370 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
6371 0.17.</p>
6372
6373 <ul>
6374
6375  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
6376  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
6377    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
6378  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
6379  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
6380  <li>Fix include orders</li>
6381  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
6382  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
6383  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
6384    the palette size is the same.</li>
6385  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
6386  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
6387  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
6388  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
6389    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
6390
6391 </ul>
6392
6393 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
6394 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
6395 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
6396
6397       </div>
6398       <div class="tags">
6399
6400
6401         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>.
6402
6403
6404       </div>
6405     </div>
6406     <div class="padding"></div>
6407
6408     <div class="entry">
6409       <div class="title">
6410         <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>
6411       </div>
6412       <div class="date">
6413         26th September 2014
6414       </div>
6415       <div class="body">
6416         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6417 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
6418 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
6419 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
6420 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
6421 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
6422 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
6423 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
6424 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
6425 future.  The
6426 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
6427 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
6428 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
6429 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
6430 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
6431
6432 <p>First, download the test ISO via
6433 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
6434 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
6435 or rsync (use
6436 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
6437 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
6438 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
6439 install with some tweaking.</p>
6440
6441 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
6442 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
6443
6444 <p><blockquote><pre>
6445 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
6446 </pre></blockquote></p>
6447
6448 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
6449 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
6450 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
6451 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
6452
6453 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
6454 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
6455 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
6456 your need.</p>
6457
6458 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
6459 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
6460 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
6461 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
6462 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
6463 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
6464 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
6465 days.</p>
6466
6467 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
6468 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
6469 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
6470 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
6471 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
6472 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
6473 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
6474 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
6475 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
6476
6477 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
6478 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
6479 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
6480
6481       </div>
6482       <div class="tags">
6483
6484
6485         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>.
6486
6487
6488       </div>
6489     </div>
6490     <div class="padding"></div>
6491
6492     <div class="entry">
6493       <div class="title">
6494         <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>
6495       </div>
6496       <div class="date">
6497         25th September 2014
6498       </div>
6499       <div class="body">
6500         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
6501 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
6502 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
6503 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
6504 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
6505 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
6506 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
6507 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
6508 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
6509 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
6510 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
6511 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
6512 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
6513
6514 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
6515 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
6516 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
6517 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
6518 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
6519 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
6520 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
6521 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
6522 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
6523 list</a>. :)</p>
6524
6525       </div>
6526       <div class="tags">
6527
6528
6529         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>.
6530
6531
6532       </div>
6533     </div>
6534     <div class="padding"></div>
6535
6536     <div class="entry">
6537       <div class="title">
6538         <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>
6539       </div>
6540       <div class="date">
6541         16th September 2014
6542       </div>
6543       <div class="body">
6544         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
6545 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
6546 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
6547 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
6548 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
6549 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
6550 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
6551 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
6552 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
6553 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
6554 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
6555 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
6556 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
6557 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
6558
6559 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
6560 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
6561 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
6562 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
6563 depend on the small and clever package
6564 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
6565 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
6566 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
6567 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
6568 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
6569 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
6570 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
6571 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
6572 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
6573 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
6574 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
6575
6576 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
6577 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
6578 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
6579 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
6580 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
6581 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
6582 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
6583 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
6584 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
6585 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
6586 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
6587 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
6588 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
6589 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
6590 dialog.</p>
6591
6592 <p><table>
6593
6594 <tr>
6595 <th>Machine/setup</th>
6596 <th>Original tasksel</th>
6597 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
6598 <th>Reduction</th>
6599 </tr>
6600
6601 <tr>
6602 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
6603 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
6604 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
6605 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
6606 </tr>
6607
6608 <tr>
6609 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
6610 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
6611 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
6612 <td>23 min 40%</td>
6613 </tr>
6614
6615 <tr>
6616 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
6617 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
6618 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
6619 <td>11 min 50%</td>
6620 </tr>
6621
6622 <tr>
6623 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
6624 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
6625 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
6626 <td>2 min 33%</td>
6627 </tr>
6628
6629 <tr>
6630 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
6631 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
6632 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
6633 <td>4 min 21%</td>
6634 </tr>
6635
6636 </table></p>
6637
6638 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
6639 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
6640 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
6641 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
6642 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
6643 installed.</p>
6644
6645 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
6646 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
6647 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
6648 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
6649 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
6650 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
6651 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
6652 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
6653 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
6654 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
6655 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
6656 for the entire installation.</p>
6657
6658 <p>I've implemented this in the
6659 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
6660 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
6661 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
6662 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
6663 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
6664
6665 <p><blockquote><pre>
6666 #!/bin/sh
6667 set -e
6668 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
6669 info() {
6670     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
6671 }
6672 error() {
6673     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
6674 }
6675 override_install() {
6676     apt-install eatmydata || true
6677     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
6678         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
6679             file=/usr/bin/$bin
6680             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
6681             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
6682                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
6683                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
6684                     > /target$file.edu
6685                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
6686                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
6687                     --rename --quiet --add $file
6688                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
6689             else
6690                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
6691             fi
6692         done
6693     else
6694         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
6695     fi
6696 }
6697
6698 override_install
6699 </pre></blockquote></p>
6700
6701 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
6702 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
6703
6704 <p><blockquote><pre>
6705 #! /bin/sh -e
6706 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
6707 error() {
6708     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
6709 }
6710 remove_install_override() {
6711     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
6712         file=/usr/bin/$bin
6713         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
6714             rm /target$file
6715             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
6716                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
6717             rm /target$file.edu
6718         else
6719             error "Missing divert for $file."
6720         fi
6721     done
6722     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
6723 }
6724
6725 remove_install_override
6726 </pre></blockquote></p>
6727
6728 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
6729 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
6730 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
6731
6732 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
6733 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
6734 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
6735 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
6736 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
6737 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
6738 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
6739 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
6740 everyone.</p>
6741
6742 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
6743 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
6744 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
6745 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
6746
6747 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
6748 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
6749 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
6750 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
6751 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
6752
6753 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
6754 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
6755 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
6756 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
6757 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
6758
6759       </div>
6760       <div class="tags">
6761
6762
6763         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>.
6764
6765
6766       </div>
6767     </div>
6768     <div class="padding"></div>
6769
6770     <div class="entry">
6771       <div class="title">
6772         <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>
6773       </div>
6774       <div class="date">
6775         10th September 2014
6776       </div>
6777       <div class="body">
6778         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
6779 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
6780 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
6781 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
6782 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
6783 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
6784 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
6785 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
6786 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
6787 those problems are gone now.</p>
6788
6789 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
6790 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
6791 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
6792 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
6793 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
6794
6795 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
6796 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
6797 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
6798
6799 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
6800 line:</p>
6801
6802 <p><blockquote><pre>
6803 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
6804 </pre></blockquote></p>
6805
6806 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
6807 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
6808 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
6809 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
6810
6811 <p><blockquote><pre>
6812 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
6813 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
6814 %
6815 </pre></blockquote></p>
6816
6817 <p>Now if only
6818 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
6819 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
6820 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
6821 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
6822 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
6823 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
6824 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
6825 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
6826 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
6827
6828       </div>
6829       <div class="tags">
6830
6831
6832         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>.
6833
6834
6835       </div>
6836     </div>
6837     <div class="padding"></div>
6838
6839     <div class="entry">
6840       <div class="title">
6841         <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>
6842       </div>
6843       <div class="date">
6844         17th June 2014
6845       </div>
6846       <div class="body">
6847         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6848 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
6849 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
6850 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
6851 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
6852
6853 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
6854 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
6855 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
6856 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
6857 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
6858 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
6859 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
6860 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
6861 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
6862 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
6863 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
6864 goals.</p>
6865
6866 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
6867 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
6868 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
6869 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
6870 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
6871 chapters together into one large web page (aka
6872 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
6873 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
6874 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
6875 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
6876 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
6877 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
6878 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
6879 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
6880 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
6881 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
6882 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
6883 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
6884 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
6885 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
6886 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
6887 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
6888 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
6889 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
6890
6891 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
6892 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
6893 track the English original.  For this we use the
6894 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
6895 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
6896 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
6897 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
6898 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
6899 files), which the translations update with the native language
6900 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
6901 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
6902 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
6903 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
6904 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
6905 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
6906 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
6907 of the documentation.</p>
6908
6909 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
6910 recommend using
6911 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
6912 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
6913 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
6914 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
6915 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
6916 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
6917 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
6918 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
6919
6920 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
6921 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
6922 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
6923 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
6924 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
6925 translated images by storing translated versions in
6926 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
6927 package maintainers know more.</p>
6928
6929 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
6930 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
6931 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
6932 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
6933 PDF version</a> or the
6934 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
6935 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
6936 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
6937
6938 <p>To learn more, check out
6939 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
6940 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
6941 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
6942 manual on the wiki</a> and
6943 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
6944 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
6945
6946       </div>
6947       <div class="tags">
6948
6949
6950         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>.
6951
6952
6953       </div>
6954     </div>
6955     <div class="padding"></div>
6956
6957     <div class="entry">
6958       <div class="title">
6959         <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>
6960       </div>
6961       <div class="date">
6962         23rd April 2014
6963       </div>
6964       <div class="body">
6965         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
6966 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
6967 So I implemented one, using
6968 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
6969 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
6970 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
6971 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
6972 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
6973 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
6974
6975 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
6976 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
6977 packages to install.  The first part is in
6978 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
6979 this:</p>
6980
6981 <p><blockquote><pre>
6982 Task: isenkram
6983 Section: hardware
6984 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
6985  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
6986  proposed.
6987 Test-new-install: mark show
6988 Relevance: 8
6989 Packages: for-current-hardware
6990 </pre></blockquote></p>
6991
6992 <p>The second part is in
6993 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
6994 this:</p>
6995
6996 <p><blockquote><pre>
6997 #!/bin/sh
6998 #
6999 (
7000     isenkram-lookup
7001     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
7002 ) | sort -u
7003 </pre></blockquote></p>
7004
7005 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
7006 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
7007 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
7008 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
7009 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
7010 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
7011
7012 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
7013 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
7014 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
7015 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
7016 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
7017 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
7018 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
7019 the python-apt code (bug
7020 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
7021 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
7022 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
7023 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
7024 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
7025 unstable today.</p>
7026
7027 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
7028 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
7029 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
7030 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
7031 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
7032 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
7033 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
7034 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
7035 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
7036
7037 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
7038 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
7039 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
7040 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
7041 package.  See also
7042 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
7043 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
7044 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
7045 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
7046
7047       </div>
7048       <div class="tags">
7049
7050
7051         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>.
7052
7053
7054       </div>
7055     </div>
7056     <div class="padding"></div>
7057
7058     <div class="entry">
7059       <div class="title">
7060         <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>
7061       </div>
7062       <div class="date">
7063         15th April 2014
7064       </div>
7065       <div class="body">
7066         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
7067 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
7068 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
7069 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
7070 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
7071 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
7072
7073 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
7074 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
7075 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
7076 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
7077 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
7078 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
7079 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
7080
7081 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
7082 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
7083 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
7084 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
7085 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
7086 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
7087 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
7088 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
7089 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
7090 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
7091 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
7092 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
7093
7094 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
7095 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
7096 become root:</p>
7097
7098 <p><pre>
7099 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
7100   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
7101   u-boot-tools
7102 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
7103   freedom-maker
7104 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
7105 </pre></p>
7106
7107 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
7108 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
7109 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
7110 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
7111 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
7112 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
7113 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
7114 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
7115
7116 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
7117 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
7118 the preseed values:</p>
7119
7120 <p><pre>
7121 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
7122 </pre></p>
7123
7124 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
7125 it still work.</p>
7126
7127 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
7128 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
7129 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
7130 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
7131 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
7132 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
7133 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
7134
7135 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
7136 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
7137 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
7138 irc.debian.org)</a> and
7139 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
7140 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
7141
7142       </div>
7143       <div class="tags">
7144
7145
7146         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>.
7147
7148
7149       </div>
7150     </div>
7151     <div class="padding"></div>
7152
7153     <div class="entry">
7154       <div class="title">
7155         <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>
7156       </div>
7157       <div class="date">
7158          9th April 2014
7159       </div>
7160       <div class="body">
7161         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
7162 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
7163 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
7164 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
7165 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
7166 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
7167 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
7168 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
7169 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
7170 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
7171 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
7172 have looked at a system called
7173 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
7174 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
7175
7176 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
7177 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
7178 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
7179 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
7180 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
7181 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
7182 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
7183 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
7184 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
7185 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
7186 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
7187 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
7188 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
7189
7190 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
7191 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
7192 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
7193 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
7194 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
7195 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
7196 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
7197 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
7198 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
7199 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
7200 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
7201 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
7202 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
7203 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
7204 account.</p>
7205
7206 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
7207 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
7208 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
7209 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
7210 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
7211 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
7212 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
7213
7214 <p><blockquote><pre>
7215 [s3c]
7216 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
7217 backend-login: API-login
7218 backend-password: API-password
7219 fs-passphrase: local-password
7220 </pre></blockquote></p>
7221
7222 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
7223 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
7224 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
7225 details and password to create it:</p>
7226
7227 <p><blockquote><pre>
7228 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
7229 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
7230   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
7231 Enter backend login:
7232 Enter backend password:
7233 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
7234 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
7235 Enter encryption password:
7236 Confirm encryption password:
7237 Generating random encryption key...
7238 Creating metadata tables...
7239 Dumping metadata...
7240 ..objects..
7241 ..blocks..
7242 ..inodes..
7243 ..inode_blocks..
7244 ..symlink_targets..
7245 ..names..
7246 ..contents..
7247 ..ext_attributes..
7248 Compressing and uploading metadata...
7249 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
7250 # </pre></blockquote></p>
7251
7252 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
7253
7254 <p><blockquote><pre>
7255 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
7256   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
7257 Using 4 upload threads.
7258 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
7259 Reading metadata...
7260 ..objects..
7261 ..blocks..
7262 ..inodes..
7263 ..inode_blocks..
7264 ..symlink_targets..
7265 ..names..
7266 ..contents..
7267 ..ext_attributes..
7268 Mounting filesystem...
7269 # df -h /s3ql
7270 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
7271 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
7272 #
7273 </pre></blockquote></p>
7274
7275 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
7276 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
7277 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
7278 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
7279 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
7280 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
7281
7282 <p><blockquote><pre>
7283 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
7284 #
7285 </pre></blockquote></p>
7286
7287 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
7288 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
7289 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
7290 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
7291 file system:</p>
7292
7293 <p><blockquote><pre>
7294 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
7295 Using cached metadata.
7296 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
7297 Checking DB integrity...
7298 Creating temporary extra indices...
7299 Checking lost+found...
7300 Checking cached objects...
7301 Checking names (refcounts)...
7302 Checking contents (names)...
7303 Checking contents (inodes)...
7304 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
7305 Checking objects (reference counts)...
7306 Checking objects (backend)...
7307 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
7308 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
7309 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
7310 Checking objects (sizes)...
7311 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
7312 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
7313 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
7314 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
7315 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
7316 Checking inodes (sizes)...
7317 Checking extended attributes (names)...
7318 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
7319 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
7320 Checking directory reachability...
7321 Checking unix conventions...
7322 Checking referential integrity...
7323 Dropping temporary indices...
7324 Backing up old metadata...
7325 Dumping metadata...
7326 ..objects..
7327 ..blocks..
7328 ..inodes..
7329 ..inode_blocks..
7330 ..symlink_targets..
7331 ..names..
7332 ..contents..
7333 ..ext_attributes..
7334 Compressing and uploading metadata...
7335 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
7336 #
7337 </pre></blockquote></p>
7338
7339 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
7340 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
7341 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
7342 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
7343 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
7344 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
7345 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
7346 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
7347 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
7348 working set.</p>
7349
7350 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
7351 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
7352 busy:</p>
7353
7354 <p><blockquote><pre>
7355 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
7356   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
7357 Using 8 upload threads.
7358 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
7359 #
7360 </pre></blockquote></p>
7361
7362 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
7363 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
7364 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
7365 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
7366 s3qlctrl:
7367
7368 <p><blockquote><pre>
7369 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
7370 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
7371 #
7372 </pre></blockquote></p>
7373
7374 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
7375 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
7376 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
7377 a report:</p>
7378
7379 <p><blockquote><pre>
7380 # s3qlstat /s3ql
7381 Directory entries:    9141
7382 Inodes:               9143
7383 Data blocks:          8851
7384 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
7385 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
7386 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
7387 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
7388 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
7389 #
7390 </pre></blockquote></p>
7391
7392 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
7393 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
7394 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
7395 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
7396 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
7397 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
7398 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
7399 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
7400 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
7401 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
7402 best.</p>
7403
7404 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
7405 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
7406 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
7407 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
7408 poster is titled
7409 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
7410 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
7411 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
7412 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
7413 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
7414
7415 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
7416 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
7417 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
7418 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
7419 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
7420 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
7421 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
7422 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
7423
7424 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
7425 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
7426 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
7427 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
7428 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
7429 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
7430 only read from it.</p>
7431
7432 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
7433 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
7434 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
7435
7436       </div>
7437       <div class="tags">
7438
7439
7440         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>.
7441
7442
7443       </div>
7444     </div>
7445     <div class="padding"></div>
7446
7447     <div class="entry">
7448       <div class="title">
7449         <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>
7450       </div>
7451       <div class="date">
7452         14th March 2014
7453       </div>
7454       <div class="body">
7455         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
7456 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
7457 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
7458 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
7459 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
7460 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
7461 release (0.2).</p>
7462
7463 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
7464 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
7465 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
7466 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
7467 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
7468 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
7469 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
7470 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
7471 and build using
7472 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
7473 with a user with sudo access to become root:
7474
7475 <pre>
7476 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
7477   freedom-maker
7478 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
7479   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
7480   u-boot-tools
7481 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
7482 </pre>
7483
7484 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
7485 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
7486 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
7487 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
7488 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
7489 kpartx call.</p>
7490
7491 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
7492 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
7493 the preseed values:</p>
7494
7495 <pre>
7496 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
7497 </pre>
7498
7499 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
7500 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
7501 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
7502 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
7503 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
7504 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
7505
7506 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
7507 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
7508 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
7509 irc.debian.org)</a> and
7510 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
7511 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
7512
7513       </div>
7514       <div class="tags">
7515
7516
7517         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>.
7518
7519
7520       </div>
7521     </div>
7522     <div class="padding"></div>
7523
7524     <div class="entry">
7525       <div class="title">
7526         <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>
7527       </div>
7528       <div class="date">
7529         22nd February 2014
7530       </div>
7531       <div class="body">
7532         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
7533 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
7534 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
7535 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
7536 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
7537 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
7538 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
7539 proper home since then.</p>
7540
7541 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
7542 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
7543 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
7544 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
7545 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
7546
7547 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
7548 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
7549 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
7550 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
7551 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
7552 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
7553 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
7554 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
7555 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
7556
7557       </div>
7558       <div class="tags">
7559
7560
7561         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>.
7562
7563
7564       </div>
7565     </div>
7566     <div class="padding"></div>
7567
7568     <div class="entry">
7569       <div class="title">
7570         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
7571       </div>
7572       <div class="date">
7573          3rd February 2014
7574       </div>
7575       <div class="body">
7576         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
7577 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
7578 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
7579 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
7580 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
7581 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
7582 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
7583 <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>,
7584 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
7585
7586 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
7587 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
7588 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
7589 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
7590 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
7591 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
7592
7593 <p><blockquote><pre>
7594 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
7595 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
7596 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
7597 dhclient /dev/eth0
7598 </pre></blockquote></p>
7599
7600 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
7601 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
7602 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
7603
7604 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
7605 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
7606 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
7607 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
7608 side.</p>
7609
7610 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
7611 stuff:</p>
7612
7613 <p><blockquote><pre>
7614 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
7615 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
7616 EOF
7617 apt-get update
7618 apt-get dist-upgrade
7619 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
7620     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
7621 update-alternatives --config runsystem
7622 </pre></blockquote></p>
7623
7624 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
7625 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
7626 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
7627 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
7628 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
7629 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
7630 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
7631 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
7632 ssh instead.
7633
7634 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
7635 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
7636 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
7637 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
7638 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
7639 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
7640
7641 <p><blockquote><pre>
7642 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
7643 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
7644 EOF
7645 </pre></blockquote></p>
7646
7647 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
7648 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
7649 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
7650 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
7651
7652 <p><blockquote><pre>
7653 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
7654 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
7655 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
7656 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
7657 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
7658 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
7659 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
7660 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
7661 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
7662 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
7663 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
7664 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
7665 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
7666 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
7667 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
7668 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
7669 #
7670 </pre></blockquote></p>
7671
7672 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
7673 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
7674 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
7675 command line stuff.<p>
7676
7677       </div>
7678       <div class="tags">
7679
7680
7681         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>.
7682
7683
7684       </div>
7685     </div>
7686     <div class="padding"></div>
7687
7688     <div class="entry">
7689       <div class="title">
7690         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
7691       </div>
7692       <div class="date">
7693         14th January 2014
7694       </div>
7695       <div class="body">
7696         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
7697 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
7698 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
7699 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
7700 the source.  The company behind it provide
7701 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
7702 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
7703 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
7704 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
7705 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
7706 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
7707 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
7708 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
7709 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
7710 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
7711 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
7712 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
7713 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
7714 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
7715 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
7716 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
7717 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
7718 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
7719 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
7720
7721 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
7722
7723 <ul>
7724
7725   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
7726   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
7727   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
7728
7729 </ul>
7730
7731 <p>You can
7732 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
7733 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
7734 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
7735 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
7736 include a test suite check.</p>
7737
7738       </div>
7739       <div class="tags">
7740
7741
7742         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>.
7743
7744
7745       </div>
7746     </div>
7747     <div class="padding"></div>
7748
7749     <div class="entry">
7750       <div class="title">
7751         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
7752       </div>
7753       <div class="date">
7754         24th November 2013
7755       </div>
7756       <div class="body">
7757         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
7758 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
7759 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
7760 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
7761 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
7762 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
7763 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
7764 is working on.  I checked the
7765 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
7766 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
7767 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
7768 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
7769 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
7770 These are the release notes:</p>
7771
7772 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
7773
7774 <ul>
7775
7776   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
7777    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
7778    up.</li>
7779
7780   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
7781
7782   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
7783    Matthias Klose.</li>
7784
7785   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
7786    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
7787
7788   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
7789    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
7790    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
7791
7792 </ul>
7793
7794 <p>You can
7795 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
7796 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
7797 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
7798 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
7799 include a testsuite check.</p>
7800
7801       </div>
7802       <div class="tags">
7803
7804
7805         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>.
7806
7807
7808       </div>
7809     </div>
7810     <div class="padding"></div>
7811
7812     <div class="entry">
7813       <div class="title">
7814         <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>
7815       </div>
7816       <div class="date">
7817          2nd November 2013
7818       </div>
7819       <div class="body">
7820         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
7821 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
7822 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
7823 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
7824 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
7825
7826 <p><pre>
7827 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
7828 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
7829 # Provides:          rsyslog
7830 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
7831 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
7832 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
7833 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
7834 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
7835 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
7836 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
7837 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
7838 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
7839 ### END INIT INFO
7840 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
7841 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
7842 </pre></p>
7843
7844 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
7845 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
7846 info/comments.</p>
7847
7848 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
7849 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
7850
7851 <p><pre>
7852 #!/bin/sh
7853
7854 # Define LSB log_* functions.
7855 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
7856 # and status_of_proc is working.
7857 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
7858
7859 #
7860 # Function that starts the daemon/service
7861
7862 #
7863 do_start()
7864 {
7865         # Return
7866         #   0 if daemon has been started
7867         #   1 if daemon was already running
7868         #   2 if daemon could not be started
7869         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
7870                 || return 1
7871         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
7872                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
7873                 || return 2
7874         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
7875         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
7876         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
7877 }
7878
7879 #
7880 # Function that stops the daemon/service
7881 #
7882 do_stop()
7883 {
7884         # Return
7885         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
7886         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
7887         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
7888         #   other if a failure occurred
7889         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
7890         RETVAL="$?"
7891         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
7892         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
7893         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
7894         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
7895         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
7896         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
7897         # sleep for some time.
7898         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
7899         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
7900         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
7901         rm -f $PIDFILE
7902         return "$RETVAL"
7903 }
7904
7905 #
7906 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
7907 #
7908 do_reload() {
7909         #
7910         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
7911         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
7912         # then implement that here.
7913         #
7914         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
7915         return 0
7916 }
7917
7918 SCRIPTNAME=$1
7919 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
7920 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
7921 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
7922     script="$1"
7923     shift
7924     . $script
7925 else
7926     exit 0
7927 fi
7928
7929 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
7930 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
7931
7932 # Exit if the package is not installed
7933 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
7934
7935 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
7936 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
7937
7938 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
7939 . /lib/init/vars.sh
7940
7941 case "$1" in
7942   start)
7943         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
7944         do_start
7945         case "$?" in
7946                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
7947                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
7948         esac
7949         ;;
7950   stop)
7951         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
7952         do_stop
7953         case "$?" in
7954                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
7955                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
7956         esac
7957         ;;
7958   status)
7959         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
7960         ;;
7961   #reload|force-reload)
7962         #
7963         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
7964         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
7965         #
7966         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
7967         #do_reload
7968         #log_end_msg $?
7969         #;;
7970   restart|force-reload)
7971         #
7972         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
7973         # 'force-reload' alias
7974         #
7975         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
7976         do_stop
7977         case "$?" in
7978           0|1)
7979                 do_start
7980                 case "$?" in
7981                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
7982                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
7983                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
7984                 esac
7985                 ;;
7986           *)
7987                 # Failed to stop
7988                 log_end_msg 1
7989                 ;;
7990         esac
7991         ;;
7992   *)
7993         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
7994         exit 3
7995         ;;
7996 esac
7997
7998 :
7999 </pre></p>
8000
8001 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
8002 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
8003 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
8004 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
8005
8006 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
8007 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
8008 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
8009 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
8010 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
8011
8012       </div>
8013       <div class="tags">
8014
8015
8016         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>.
8017
8018
8019       </div>
8020     </div>
8021     <div class="padding"></div>
8022
8023     <div class="entry">
8024       <div class="title">
8025         <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>
8026       </div>
8027       <div class="date">
8028          1st November 2013
8029       </div>
8030       <div class="body">
8031         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
8032 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
8033 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
8034 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
8035 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
8036 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
8037 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
8038 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
8039 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
8040 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
8041 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
8042 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
8043
8044 <p>The source is now available from
8045 <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>
8046
8047       </div>
8048       <div class="tags">
8049
8050
8051         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>.
8052
8053
8054       </div>
8055     </div>
8056     <div class="padding"></div>
8057
8058     <div class="entry">
8059       <div class="title">
8060         <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>
8061       </div>
8062       <div class="date">
8063         27th October 2013
8064       </div>
8065       <div class="body">
8066         <p>The
8067 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
8068 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
8069 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
8070 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
8071 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
8072 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
8073 of a plan to simplify the build system for
8074 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
8075 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
8076 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
8077 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
8078 Raspberry Pi.</p>
8079
8080 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
8081 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
8082 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
8083 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
8084 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
8085 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
8086 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
8087 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
8088 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
8089 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
8090 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
8091 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
8092 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
8093 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
8094 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
8095 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
8096 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
8097 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
8098 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
8099 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
8100 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
8101 available from
8102 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
8103 upstream project page</a>.</p>
8104
8105 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
8106 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
8107 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
8108 list:</p>
8109
8110 <p><pre>
8111 #!/bin/sh
8112 set -e # Exit on first error
8113 rootdir="$1"
8114 cd "$rootdir"
8115 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
8116 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
8117 EOF
8118 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
8119 # install a kernel somewhere too.
8120 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
8121     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
8122 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
8123 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
8124 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
8125 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
8126 </pre></p>
8127
8128 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
8129 to build the image:</p>
8130
8131 <pre>
8132 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
8133     --variant minbase \
8134     --arch armel \
8135     --distribution jessie \
8136     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
8137     --image test.img \
8138     --size 600M \
8139     --bootsize 64M \
8140     --boottype vfat \
8141     --log-level debug \
8142     --verbose \
8143     --no-kernel \
8144     --no-extlinux \
8145     --root-password raspberry \
8146     --hostname raspberrypi \
8147     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
8148     --customize `pwd`/customize \
8149     --package netbase \
8150     --package git-core \
8151     --package binutils \
8152     --package ca-certificates \
8153     --package wget \
8154     --package kmod
8155 </pre></p>
8156
8157 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
8158 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
8159 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
8160 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
8161 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
8162 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
8163 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
8164
8165 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
8166 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
8167 build dependency list.</p>
8168
8169 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
8170 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
8171 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
8172 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
8173
8174       </div>
8175       <div class="tags">
8176
8177
8178         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>.
8179
8180
8181       </div>
8182     </div>
8183     <div class="padding"></div>
8184
8185     <div class="entry">
8186       <div class="title">
8187         <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>
8188       </div>
8189       <div class="date">
8190         15th October 2013
8191       </div>
8192       <div class="body">
8193         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
8194 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
8195 these. :)</p>
8196
8197 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
8198 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
8199 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
8200 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
8201 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
8202 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
8203 hope you will to. :)</p>
8204
8205 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
8206 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
8207 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
8208 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
8209 donated.  Are you next?</p>
8210
8211 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
8212 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
8213 statement under the heading
8214 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
8215 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
8216 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
8217 too.</p>
8218
8219       </div>
8220       <div class="tags">
8221
8222
8223         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>.
8224
8225
8226       </div>
8227     </div>
8228     <div class="padding"></div>
8229
8230     <div class="entry">
8231       <div class="title">
8232         <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>
8233       </div>
8234       <div class="date">
8235         27th September 2013
8236       </div>
8237       <div class="body">
8238         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
8239 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
8240 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
8241 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
8242
8243 <ul>
8244
8245 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
8246 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
8247
8248 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
8249 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
8250
8251 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
8252 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
8253 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
8254 (Youtube)</li>
8255
8256 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
8257 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
8258
8259 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
8260 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
8261
8262 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
8263 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
8264 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
8265
8266 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
8267 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
8268 (Youtube)</li>
8269
8270 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
8271 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
8272
8273 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
8274 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
8275
8276 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
8277 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
8278 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
8279
8280 </ul>
8281
8282 <p>A larger list is available from
8283 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
8284 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
8285
8286 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
8287 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
8288 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
8289 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
8290 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
8291 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
8292 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
8293 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
8294 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
8295 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
8296 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
8297
8298       </div>
8299       <div class="tags">
8300
8301
8302         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>.
8303
8304
8305       </div>
8306     </div>
8307     <div class="padding"></div>
8308
8309     <div class="entry">
8310       <div class="title">
8311         <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>
8312       </div>
8313       <div class="date">
8314         10th September 2013
8315       </div>
8316       <div class="body">
8317         <p>I was introduced to the
8318 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
8319 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
8320 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
8321 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
8322 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
8323 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
8324 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
8325 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
8326
8327 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
8328 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
8329 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
8330 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
8331 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
8332
8333 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
8334 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
8335 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
8336 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
8337 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
8338 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
8339 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
8340 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
8341 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
8342 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
8343 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
8344 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
8345 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
8346 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
8347 missing in Debian).</p>
8348
8349 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
8350 scripts
8351 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
8352 and a administrative web interface
8353 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
8354 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
8355 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
8356 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
8357 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
8358 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
8359 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
8360 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
8361 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
8362 this is really working yet, see
8363 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
8364 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
8365 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
8366 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
8367 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
8368 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
8369 with lots of half baked features.</p>
8370
8371 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
8372 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
8373 at.</p>
8374
8375 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
8376
8377 <ol>
8378
8379 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
8380 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
8381 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
8382 to the Debian installer:<p>
8383 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
8384
8385 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
8386 install on.</li>
8387
8388 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
8389 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
8390
8391 </ol>
8392
8393 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
8394
8395 <ol>
8396
8397 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
8398 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
8399 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
8400 <pre>
8401 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
8402 </pre></li>
8403 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
8404 <pre>
8405 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
8406    apt-key add -
8407 apt-get update
8408 apt-get install freedombox-setup
8409 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
8410 </pre></li>
8411 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
8412
8413 </ol>
8414
8415 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
8416 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
8417 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
8418 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
8419 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
8420
8421 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
8422 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
8423 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
8424 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
8425
8426 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
8427 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
8428 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
8429 irc.debian.org and the
8430 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
8431 mailing list</a>.</p>
8432
8433 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
8434 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
8435 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
8436 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
8437 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
8438 default password is 'secret'.</p>
8439
8440       </div>
8441       <div class="tags">
8442
8443
8444         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>.
8445
8446
8447       </div>
8448     </div>
8449     <div class="padding"></div>
8450
8451     <div class="entry">
8452       <div class="title">
8453         <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>
8454       </div>
8455       <div class="date">
8456         18th August 2013
8457       </div>
8458       <div class="body">
8459         <p>Earlier, I reported about
8460 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
8461 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
8462 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
8463 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
8464 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
8465 currently on the disk.</p>
8466
8467 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
8468 <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>
8469 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
8470 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
8471 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
8472 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
8473 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
8474 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
8475 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
8476 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
8477 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
8478 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
8479 the broken disks.</p>
8480
8481       </div>
8482       <div class="tags">
8483
8484
8485         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>.
8486
8487
8488       </div>
8489     </div>
8490     <div class="padding"></div>
8491
8492     <div class="entry">
8493       <div class="title">
8494         <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>
8495       </div>
8496       <div class="date">
8497         17th July 2013
8498       </div>
8499       <div class="body">
8500         <p>Today I switched to
8501 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
8502 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
8503 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
8504 <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
8505 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
8506 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
8507 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
8508 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
8509 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
8510 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
8511 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
8512 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
8513 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
8514 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
8515 station from now on.</p>
8516
8517 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
8518 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
8519 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
8520 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
8521 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
8522 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
8523 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
8524 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
8525 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
8526 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
8527 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
8528 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
8529
8530 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
8531 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
8532 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
8533 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
8534 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
8535 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
8536 parameters are tuned:</p>
8537
8538 <ul>
8539
8540 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
8541     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
8542
8543 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
8544     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
8545     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
8546
8547 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
8548     systems.</li>
8549
8550 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
8551     /etc/fstab.</li>
8552
8553 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
8554
8555 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
8556     cron.daily).</li>
8557
8558 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
8559     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
8560
8561 </ul>
8562
8563 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
8564 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
8565 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
8566 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
8567 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
8568 from getting the data on the disk (see
8569 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
8570 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
8571 right thing to do.</p>
8572
8573 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
8574 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
8575 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
8576
8577 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
8578 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
8579 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
8580 instead of during my work.</p>
8581
8582 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
8583 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
8584
8585 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
8586 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
8587 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
8588
8589 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
8590 there.</p>
8591
8592 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
8593 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
8594 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
8595 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
8596 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
8597 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
8598 back.</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/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>
8614       </div>
8615       <div class="date">
8616         10th July 2013
8617       </div>
8618       <div class="body">
8619         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
8620 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
8621 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
8622 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
8623 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
8624 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
8625 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
8626 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
8627
8628 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
8629 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
8630 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
8631 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
8632 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
8633 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
8634 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
8635 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
8636 lock up when I download a new
8637 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
8638 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
8639 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
8640
8641 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
8642 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
8643 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
8644 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
8645 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
8646 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
8647
8648 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
8649 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
8650 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
8651 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
8652 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
8653 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
8654
8655 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
8656 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
8657 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
8658 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
8659 exist).</p>
8660
8661       </div>
8662       <div class="tags">
8663
8664
8665         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>.
8666
8667
8668       </div>
8669     </div>
8670     <div class="padding"></div>
8671
8672     <div class="entry">
8673       <div class="title">
8674         <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>
8675       </div>
8676       <div class="date">
8677          9th July 2013
8678       </div>
8679       <div class="body">
8680         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
8681 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
8682 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
8683 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
8684 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
8685 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
8686 Bitraf</a>.</p>
8687
8688 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
8689 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
8690 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
8691 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
8692 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
8693
8694       </div>
8695       <div class="tags">
8696
8697
8698         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>.
8699
8700
8701       </div>
8702     </div>
8703     <div class="padding"></div>
8704
8705     <div class="entry">
8706       <div class="title">
8707         <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>
8708       </div>
8709       <div class="date">
8710          5th July 2013
8711       </div>
8712       <div class="body">
8713         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
8714 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
8715 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
8716 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
8717 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
8718 ended up picking a
8719 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
8720 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
8721 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
8722 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
8723 on that below.</p>
8724
8725 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
8726 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
8727 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
8728 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
8729 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
8730 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
8731 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
8732 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
8733 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
8734
8735 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
8736 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
8737 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
8738 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
8739 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
8740 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
8741 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
8742
8743 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
8744 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
8745
8746 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
8747 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
8748 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
8749 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
8750 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
8751 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
8752 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
8753 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
8754 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
8755 kernel developers as
8756 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
8757 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
8758 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
8759 Lenovo forums, both for
8760 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
8761 2012-11-10</a> and for
8762 <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
8763 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
8764 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
8765 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
8766 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
8767 There is even a
8768 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
8769 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
8770 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
8771
8772 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
8773 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
8774 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
8775 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
8776 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
8777 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
8778 fixed. :)</p>
8779
8780       </div>
8781       <div class="tags">
8782
8783
8784         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>.
8785
8786
8787       </div>
8788     </div>
8789     <div class="padding"></div>
8790
8791     <div class="entry">
8792       <div class="title">
8793         <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>
8794       </div>
8795       <div class="date">
8796          4th July 2013
8797       </div>
8798       <div class="body">
8799         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
8800 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
8801 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
8802 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
8803 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
8804 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
8805 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
8806 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
8807 with an expencive door stop.</p>
8808
8809 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
8810 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
8811 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
8812 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
8813 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
8814 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
8815 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
8816
8817 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
8818 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
8819 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
8820 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
8821 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
8822 new laptop now. :)</p>
8823
8824 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
8825
8826       </div>
8827       <div class="tags">
8828
8829
8830         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>.
8831
8832
8833       </div>
8834     </div>
8835     <div class="padding"></div>
8836
8837     <div class="entry">
8838       <div class="title">
8839         <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>
8840       </div>
8841       <div class="date">
8842         25th June 2013
8843       </div>
8844       <div class="body">
8845         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
8846 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
8847 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
8848 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
8849 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
8850 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
8851 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
8852 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
8853 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
8854 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
8855 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
8856
8857 <p><pre>
8858 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
8859 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
8860 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
8861 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
8862 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
8863 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
8864 firmware-ipw2x00
8865 firmware-ipw2x00
8866 Preconfiguring packages ...
8867 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
8868 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
8869 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
8870 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
8871 #
8872 </pre></p>
8873
8874 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
8875 printed instead:</p>
8876
8877 <p><pre>
8878 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
8879 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
8880 #
8881 </pre></p>
8882
8883 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
8884 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
8885
8886 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
8887 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
8888 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
8889 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
8890 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
8891 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
8892 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
8893 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
8894 machine.</p>
8895
8896 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
8897 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
8898 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
8899 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
8900 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
8901 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
8902
8903       </div>
8904       <div class="tags">
8905
8906
8907         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>.
8908
8909
8910       </div>
8911     </div>
8912     <div class="padding"></div>
8913
8914     <div class="entry">
8915       <div class="title">
8916         <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>
8917       </div>
8918       <div class="date">
8919         11th June 2013
8920       </div>
8921       <div class="body">
8922         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
8923 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
8924 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
8925 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
8926 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
8927 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
8928 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
8929 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
8930 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
8931 i915 driver used by the
8932 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
8933 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
8934
8935 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
8936 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
8937 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
8938 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
8939 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
8940
8941 <pre>
8942 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
8943 update-initramfs -u -k all
8944 </pre>
8945
8946 <p>Since March 2012 there is
8947 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
8948 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
8949 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
8950 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
8951 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
8952 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
8953 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
8954 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
8955 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
8956 number.</p>
8957
8958 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
8959 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
8960
8961 <p><pre>
8962 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
8963     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
8964     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
8965  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
8966  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
8967     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
8968  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
8969     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
8970  Latency: 0
8971  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
8972  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
8973  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
8974  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
8975  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
8976  Capabilities: <access denied>
8977  Kernel driver in use: i915
8978 </pre></p>
8979
8980 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
8981
8982 <p><pre>
8983 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
8984        ...
8985         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
8986         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
8987        ...
8988 }
8989 </pre></p>
8990
8991 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
8992 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
8993 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
8994 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
8995 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
8996 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
8997 yet shown up in
8998 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
8999 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
9000 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
9001 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
9002 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
9003 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
9004
9005 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
9006 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
9007 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
9008 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
9009 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
9010 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
9011 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
9012 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
9013 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
9014 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
9015 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
9016 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
9017
9018 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
9019 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
9020 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
9021 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
9022 backlight.</p>
9023
9024       </div>
9025       <div class="tags">
9026
9027
9028         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>.
9029
9030
9031       </div>
9032     </div>
9033     <div class="padding"></div>
9034
9035     <div class="entry">
9036       <div class="title">
9037         <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>
9038       </div>
9039       <div class="date">
9040         27th May 2013
9041       </div>
9042       <div class="body">
9043         <p>Two days ago, I asked
9044 <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
9045 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
9046 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
9047 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
9048 and Windows 8.</p>
9049
9050 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
9051 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
9052 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
9053 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
9054 enough to tell.</p>
9055
9056 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
9057 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
9058 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
9059 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
9060 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
9061 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
9062 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
9063 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
9064 to follow.</p>
9065
9066 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
9067 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
9068 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
9069 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
9070 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
9071 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
9072 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
9073 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
9074
9075 <p>I've updated the
9076 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
9077 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
9078 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
9079 machine.</p>
9080
9081 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
9082 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
9083
9084       </div>
9085       <div class="tags">
9086
9087
9088         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>.
9089
9090
9091       </div>
9092     </div>
9093     <div class="padding"></div>
9094
9095     <div class="entry">
9096       <div class="title">
9097         <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>
9098       </div>
9099       <div class="date">
9100         25th May 2013
9101       </div>
9102       <div class="body">
9103         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
9104 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
9105 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
9106 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
9107 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
9108 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
9109
9110 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
9111 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
9112 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
9113 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
9114 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
9115 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
9116 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
9117 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
9118 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
9119 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
9120
9121 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
9122 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
9123 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
9124 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
9125 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
9126 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
9127
9128 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
9129 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
9130 on new Laptops?</p>
9131
9132       </div>
9133       <div class="tags">
9134
9135
9136         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>.
9137
9138
9139       </div>
9140     </div>
9141     <div class="padding"></div>
9142
9143     <div class="entry">
9144       <div class="title">
9145         <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>
9146       </div>
9147       <div class="date">
9148         17th May 2013
9149       </div>
9150       <div class="body">
9151         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
9152 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
9153 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
9154 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
9155 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
9156 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
9157 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
9158 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
9159 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
9160 donate some money</a>.
9161
9162 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
9163 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
9164 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
9165 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
9166 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
9167
9168 <p>The script,
9169 <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/>
9170 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
9171 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
9172 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
9173
9174 <ol>
9175
9176 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
9177 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
9178 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
9179     our configuration.</li>
9180 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
9181     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
9182     according to the profile specified in the config above,
9183     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
9184 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
9185     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
9186 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
9187
9188 </ol>
9189
9190 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
9191 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
9192 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
9193 the needed packages.</p>
9194
9195 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
9196 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
9197 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
9198 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
9199 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
9200 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
9201
9202 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
9203 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
9204 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
9205
9206 <p><pre>
9207 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
9208 DESKTOP="lxde"
9209 </pre></p>
9210
9211 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
9212 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
9213 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
9214 boot.</p>
9215
9216       </div>
9217       <div class="tags">
9218
9219
9220         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>.
9221
9222
9223       </div>
9224     </div>
9225     <div class="padding"></div>
9226
9227     <div class="entry">
9228       <div class="title">
9229         <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>
9230       </div>
9231       <div class="date">
9232         11th May 2013
9233       </div>
9234       <div class="body">
9235         <P>In January,
9236 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
9237 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
9238 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
9239 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
9240 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
9241 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
9242 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
9243 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
9244 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
9245 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
9246 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
9247 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
9248
9249 <p><table>
9250 <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>
9251 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
9252 <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>
9253 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
9254 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
9255 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
9256 <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>
9257 <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>
9258 <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>
9259 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
9260 </table></p>
9261
9262 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
9263 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
9264 available in experimental.</p>
9265
9266 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
9267 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
9268 for LEGO designers.</p>
9269
9270       </div>
9271       <div class="tags">
9272
9273
9274         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>.
9275
9276
9277       </div>
9278     </div>
9279     <div class="padding"></div>
9280
9281     <div class="entry">
9282       <div class="title">
9283         <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>
9284       </div>
9285       <div class="date">
9286          5th May 2013
9287       </div>
9288       <div class="body">
9289         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
9290 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
9291 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
9292 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
9293 soon.</p>
9294
9295 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
9296 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
9297 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
9298 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
9299 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
9300 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
9301 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
9302 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
9303 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
9304 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
9305 Edu.</a>
9306
9307 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
9308 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
9309 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
9310 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
9311 follow.<p>
9312
9313       </div>
9314       <div class="tags">
9315
9316
9317         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>.
9318
9319
9320       </div>
9321     </div>
9322     <div class="padding"></div>
9323
9324     <div class="entry">
9325       <div class="title">
9326         <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>
9327       </div>
9328       <div class="date">
9329          3rd April 2013
9330       </div>
9331       <div class="body">
9332         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
9333 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
9334 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
9335 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
9336
9337 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
9338 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
9339 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
9340 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
9341 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
9342 BTS. :)</p>
9343
9344       </div>
9345       <div class="tags">
9346
9347
9348         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>.
9349
9350
9351       </div>
9352     </div>
9353     <div class="padding"></div>
9354
9355     <div class="entry">
9356       <div class="title">
9357         <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>
9358       </div>
9359       <div class="date">
9360          2nd February 2013
9361       </div>
9362       <div class="body">
9363         <p>My
9364 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
9365 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
9366 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
9367 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
9368 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
9369 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
9370 version too.</p>
9371
9372 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
9373 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
9374 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
9375 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
9376 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
9377 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
9378 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
9379 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
9380
9381 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
9382 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
9383 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
9384 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
9385 it. :)</p>
9386
9387 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
9388 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
9389 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
9390
9391       </div>
9392       <div class="tags">
9393
9394
9395         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>.
9396
9397
9398       </div>
9399     </div>
9400     <div class="padding"></div>
9401
9402     <div class="entry">
9403       <div class="title">
9404         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
9405       </div>
9406       <div class="date">
9407         22nd January 2013
9408       </div>
9409       <div class="body">
9410         <p>Yesterday, I
9411 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
9412 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
9413 pluggable hardware devices, which I
9414 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
9415 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
9416 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
9417 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
9418 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
9419 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
9420 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
9421 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
9422 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
9423 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
9424
9425 <pre>
9426 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
9427 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
9428 </pre>
9429
9430 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
9431 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
9432 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
9433 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
9434
9435 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
9436 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
9437 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
9438 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
9439 word.</p>
9440
9441 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
9442 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
9443 process.</p>
9444
9445 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
9446 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
9447
9448       </div>
9449       <div class="tags">
9450
9451
9452         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>.
9453
9454
9455       </div>
9456     </div>
9457     <div class="padding"></div>
9458
9459     <div class="entry">
9460       <div class="title">
9461         <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>
9462       </div>
9463       <div class="date">
9464         21st January 2013
9465       </div>
9466       <div class="body">
9467         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
9468 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
9469 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
9470 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
9471 it, fetch the
9472 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
9473 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
9474 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
9475 autostart script.</p>
9476
9477 <p>The design is simple:</p>
9478
9479 <ul>
9480
9481 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
9482 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
9483
9484 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
9485 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
9486 initially did.</li>
9487
9488 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
9489 the APT database, a database
9490 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
9491 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
9492
9493 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
9494 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
9495 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
9496 package or packages.</li>
9497
9498 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
9499 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
9500
9501 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
9502 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
9503
9504 </ul>
9505
9506 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
9507 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
9508 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
9509 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
9510
9511 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
9512 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
9513 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
9514 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
9515 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
9516
9517 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
9518 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
9519 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
9520 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
9521 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
9522 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
9523 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
9524 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
9525
9526 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
9527 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
9528 '<tt>svn checkout
9529 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
9530 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
9531 devscripts package.</p>
9532
9533 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
9534 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
9535 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
9536 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
9537 instructions</a> for details.</p>
9538
9539       </div>
9540       <div class="tags">
9541
9542
9543         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>.
9544
9545
9546       </div>
9547     </div>
9548     <div class="padding"></div>
9549
9550     <div class="entry">
9551       <div class="title">
9552         <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>
9553       </div>
9554       <div class="date">
9555         19th January 2013
9556       </div>
9557       <div class="body">
9558         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
9559 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
9560 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
9561 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
9562 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
9563 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
9564 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
9565 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
9566 not a durable solution.
9567
9568 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
9569 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
9570
9571 <ul>
9572
9573 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
9574   than A4).</li>
9575 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
9576 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
9577 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
9578 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
9579 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
9580 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
9581 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
9582 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
9583 size).</li>
9584 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
9585   X.org packages.</li>
9586 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
9587   the time).
9588
9589 </ul>
9590
9591 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
9592 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
9593 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
9594 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
9595 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
9596 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
9597 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
9598 still be useful.</p>
9599
9600 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
9601 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
9602 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
9603 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
9604 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
9605 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
9606
9607       </div>
9608       <div class="tags">
9609
9610
9611         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>.
9612
9613
9614       </div>
9615     </div>
9616     <div class="padding"></div>
9617
9618     <div class="entry">
9619       <div class="title">
9620         <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>
9621       </div>
9622       <div class="date">
9623         18th January 2013
9624       </div>
9625       <div class="body">
9626         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
9627 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
9628 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
9629 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
9630 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
9631 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
9632 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
9633
9634 <pre>
9635 #!/usr/bin/python
9636 import sys
9637 import apt
9638 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
9639     cache = apt.Cache()
9640     cache.open(None)
9641     thepkgs = []
9642     for pkg in cache:
9643         version = pkg.candidate
9644         if version is None:
9645             version = pkg.installed
9646         if version is None:
9647             continue
9648         record = version.record
9649         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
9650             continue
9651         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
9652         for t in mime_types:
9653             t = t.rstrip().strip()
9654             if t == mimetype:
9655                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
9656     return thepkgs
9657 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
9658 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
9659     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
9660 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
9661 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
9662     print "  %s" %pkg
9663 </pre>
9664
9665 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
9666
9667 <pre>
9668 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
9669 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
9670   gecko-mediaplayer
9671 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
9672 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
9673   browser-plugin-gnash
9674 %
9675 </pre>
9676
9677 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
9678 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
9679 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
9680 anyone working on adding it?</p>
9681
9682 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
9683 request for icweasel support for this feature is
9684 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
9685 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
9686 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
9687 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
9688
9689       </div>
9690       <div class="tags">
9691
9692
9693         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>.
9694
9695
9696       </div>
9697     </div>
9698     <div class="padding"></div>
9699
9700     <div class="entry">
9701       <div class="title">
9702         <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>
9703       </div>
9704       <div class="date">
9705         16th January 2013
9706       </div>
9707       <div class="body">
9708         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
9709 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
9710 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
9711 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
9712 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
9713 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
9714 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
9715 downloaded by the browser.</p>
9716
9717 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
9718 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
9719 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
9720 can be found on the
9721 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
9722 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
9723 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
9724 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
9725 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
9726
9727 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
9728
9729 <pre>
9730   count MIME type
9731   ----- -----------------------
9732      32 text/plain
9733      30 audio/mpeg
9734      29 image/png
9735      28 image/jpeg
9736      27 application/ogg
9737      26 audio/x-mp3
9738      25 image/tiff
9739      25 image/gif
9740      22 image/bmp
9741      22 audio/x-wav
9742      20 audio/x-flac
9743      19 audio/x-mpegurl
9744      18 video/x-ms-asf
9745      18 audio/x-musepack
9746      18 audio/x-mpeg
9747      18 application/x-ogg
9748      17 video/mpeg
9749      17 audio/x-scpls
9750      17 audio/ogg
9751      16 video/x-ms-wmv
9752 </pre>
9753
9754 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
9755
9756 <pre>
9757   count MIME type
9758   ----- -----------------------
9759      33 text/plain
9760      32 image/png
9761      32 image/jpeg
9762      29 audio/mpeg
9763      27 image/gif
9764      26 image/tiff
9765      26 application/ogg
9766      25 audio/x-mp3
9767      22 image/bmp
9768      21 audio/x-wav
9769      19 audio/x-mpegurl
9770      19 audio/x-mpeg
9771      18 video/mpeg
9772      18 audio/x-scpls
9773      18 audio/x-flac
9774      18 application/x-ogg
9775      17 video/x-ms-asf
9776      17 text/html
9777      17 audio/x-musepack
9778      16 image/x-xbitmap
9779 </pre>
9780
9781 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
9782
9783 <pre>
9784   count MIME type
9785   ----- -----------------------
9786      31 text/plain
9787      31 image/png
9788      31 image/jpeg
9789      29 audio/mpeg
9790      28 application/ogg
9791      27 image/gif
9792      26 image/tiff
9793      26 audio/x-mp3
9794      23 audio/x-wav
9795      22 image/bmp
9796      21 audio/x-flac
9797      20 audio/x-mpegurl
9798      19 audio/x-mpeg
9799      18 video/x-ms-asf
9800      18 video/mpeg
9801      18 audio/x-scpls
9802      18 application/x-ogg
9803      17 audio/x-musepack
9804      16 video/x-ms-wmv
9805      16 video/x-msvideo
9806 </pre>
9807
9808 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
9809 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
9810 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
9811 issues.</p>
9812
9813 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
9814 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
9815
9816       </div>
9817       <div class="tags">
9818
9819
9820         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>.
9821
9822
9823       </div>
9824     </div>
9825     <div class="padding"></div>
9826
9827     <div class="entry">
9828       <div class="title">
9829         <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>
9830       </div>
9831       <div class="date">
9832         15th January 2013
9833       </div>
9834       <div class="body">
9835         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
9836 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
9837 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
9838 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
9839 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
9840 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
9841 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
9842 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
9843 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
9844 packages.</p>
9845
9846 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
9847 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
9848 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
9849 modalias.</p>
9850
9851 <p><blockquote>
9852 Package: package-name
9853 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
9854 </blockquote></p>
9855
9856 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
9857 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
9858
9859 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
9860 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
9861
9862 <p><blockquote>
9863 Package: cheese
9864 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
9865 </blockquote></p>
9866
9867 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
9868 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
9869
9870 <p><blockquote>
9871 Package: pcmciautils
9872 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
9873 </blockquote></p>
9874
9875 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
9876 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
9877
9878 <p><blockquote>
9879 Package: colorhug-client
9880 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
9881 </blockquote></p>
9882
9883 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
9884 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
9885 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
9886
9887 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
9888 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
9889 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
9890 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
9891 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
9892 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
9893 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
9894 Raring.</p>
9895
9896 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
9897 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
9898 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
9899 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
9900 try the
9901 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
9902 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
9903 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
9904 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
9905
9906 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
9907 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
9908
9909 <p><blockquote>
9910 % ./hw-support-lookup
9911 <br>yubikey-personalization
9912 <br>%
9913 </blockquote></p>
9914
9915 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
9916 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
9917
9918 <p><blockquote>
9919 % ./hw-support-lookup
9920 <br>pcmciautils
9921 <br>%
9922 </blockquote></p>
9923
9924 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
9925 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
9926 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
9927
9928 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
9929 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
9930 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
9931 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
9932 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
9933 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
9934 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
9935 see if it work.</p>
9936
9937 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
9938 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
9939 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
9940 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
9941
9942       </div>
9943       <div class="tags">
9944
9945
9946         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>.
9947
9948
9949       </div>
9950     </div>
9951     <div class="padding"></div>
9952
9953     <div class="entry">
9954       <div class="title">
9955         <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>
9956       </div>
9957       <div class="date">
9958         14th January 2013
9959       </div>
9960       <div class="body">
9961         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
9962 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
9963 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
9964 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
9965 in
9966 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
9967 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
9968
9969 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
9970
9971 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
9972 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
9973 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
9974 &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;,
9975 &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
9976 &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;.
9977
9978 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
9979 this shell script:</p>
9980
9981 <pre>
9982 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
9983 </pre>
9984
9985 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
9986 using modinfo:</p>
9987
9988 <pre>
9989 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
9990 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
9991 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
9992 %
9993 </pre>
9994
9995 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
9996
9997 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
9998 Bridge memory controller:</p>
9999
10000 <p><blockquote>
10001 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
10002 </blockquote></p>
10003
10004 <p>This represent these values:</p>
10005
10006 <pre>
10007  v   00008086  (vendor)
10008  d   00002770  (device)
10009  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
10010  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
10011  bc  06        (bus class)
10012  sc  00        (bus subclass)
10013  i   00        (interface)
10014 </pre>
10015
10016 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
10017 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
10018 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
10019 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
10020
10021 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
10022 means.</p>
10023
10024 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
10025
10026 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
10027 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
10028
10029 <p><blockquote>
10030 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
10031 </blockquote></p>
10032
10033 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
10034
10035 <pre>
10036  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
10037  p    0001  (device product)
10038  d    0206  (bcddevice)
10039  dc     09  (device class)
10040  dsc    00  (device subclass)
10041  dp     00  (device protocol)
10042  ic     09  (interface class)
10043  isc    00  (interface subclass)
10044  ip     00  (interface protocol)
10045 </pre>
10046
10047 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
10048 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
10049 these alias entries show up:</p>
10050
10051 <p><blockquote>
10052 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
10053 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
10054 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
10055 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
10056 </blockquote></p>
10057
10058 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
10059 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
10060 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
10061
10062 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
10063
10064 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
10065 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
10066
10067 <p><blockquote>
10068 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
10069 </blockquote></p>
10070
10071 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
10072
10073 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
10074
10075 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
10076 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
10077 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
10078
10079 <p><blockquote>
10080 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
10081 </blockquote></p>
10082
10083 <p>The values present are</p>
10084
10085 <pre>
10086  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
10087  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
10088  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
10089  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
10090  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
10091  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
10092  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
10093  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
10094  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
10095  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
10096  ct   10             (chassis type)
10097  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
10098 </pre>
10099
10100 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
10101 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
10102
10103 <pre>
10104   3 Desktop
10105   4 Low Profile Desktop
10106   5 Pizza Box
10107   6 Mini Tower
10108   7 Tower
10109   8 Portable
10110   9 Laptop
10111  10 Notebook
10112  11 Hand Held
10113  12 Docking Station
10114  13 All In One
10115  14 Sub Notebook
10116  15 Space-saving
10117  16 Lunch Box
10118  17 Main Server Chassis
10119  18 Expansion Chassis
10120  19 Sub Chassis
10121  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
10122  21 Peripheral Chassis
10123  22 RAID Chassis
10124  23 Rack Mount Chassis
10125  24 Sealed-case PC
10126  25 Multi-system
10127  26 CompactPCI
10128  27 AdvancedTCA
10129  28 Blade
10130  29 Blade Enclosing
10131 </pre>
10132
10133 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
10134 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
10135 claim it is a desktop.</p>
10136
10137 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
10138
10139 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
10140 test machine:</p>
10141
10142 <p><blockquote>
10143 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
10144 </blockquote></p>
10145
10146 <p>The values present are</p>
10147
10148 <pre>
10149   ty  01  (type)
10150   pr  00  (prototype)
10151   id  00  (id)
10152   ex  00  (extra)
10153 </pre>
10154
10155 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
10156 the valid values are.</p>
10157
10158 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
10159
10160 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
10161 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
10162 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
10163 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
10164 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
10165 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
10166 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
10167
10168 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
10169
10170 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
10171 one can use the following shell script:</p>
10172
10173 <pre>
10174   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
10175     echo "$id" ; \
10176     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
10177   done
10178 </pre>
10179
10180 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
10181 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
10182
10183 <pre>
10184   acpi:ACPI0003:
10185     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
10186   acpi:device:
10187   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
10188   acpi:IBM0068:
10189     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
10190     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
10191     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
10192     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
10193   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
10194     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
10195     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
10196     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
10197   [...]
10198 </pre>
10199
10200 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
10201 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
10202 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
10203 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
10204
10205 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
10206 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
10207 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
10208
10209       </div>
10210       <div class="tags">
10211
10212
10213         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>.
10214
10215
10216       </div>
10217     </div>
10218     <div class="padding"></div>
10219
10220     <div class="entry">
10221       <div class="title">
10222         <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>
10223       </div>
10224       <div class="date">
10225         10th January 2013
10226       </div>
10227       <div class="body">
10228         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
10229 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
10230 Launcher and updated the Debian package
10231 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
10232 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
10233 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
10234 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
10235 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
10236 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
10237 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
10238 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
10239 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
10240 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
10241 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
10242 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
10243 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
10244 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
10245 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
10246
10247       </div>
10248       <div class="tags">
10249
10250
10251         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>.
10252
10253
10254       </div>
10255     </div>
10256     <div class="padding"></div>
10257
10258     <div class="entry">
10259       <div class="title">
10260         <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>
10261       </div>
10262       <div class="date">
10263          9th January 2013
10264       </div>
10265       <div class="body">
10266         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
10267 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
10268 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
10269 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
10270 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
10271 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
10272 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
10273 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
10274 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
10275 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
10276 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
10277
10278 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
10279 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
10280 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
10281 simple:
10282
10283 <ul>
10284
10285 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
10286   starting when a user log in.</li>
10287
10288 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
10289   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
10290
10291 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
10292   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
10293   packages.</li>
10294
10295 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
10296   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
10297
10298 </ul>
10299
10300 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
10301 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
10302 discover database to find packages and
10303 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
10304 packages.</p>
10305
10306 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
10307 draft package is now checked into
10308 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
10309 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
10310 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
10311 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
10312 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
10313 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
10314 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
10315 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
10316 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
10317 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
10318 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
10319 because of the freeze).</p>
10320
10321 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
10322 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
10323 inserted):</p>
10324
10325 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
10326
10327 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
10328 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
10329 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
10330
10331 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
10332 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
10333 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
10334 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
10335 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
10336 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
10337 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
10338
10339 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
10340 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
10341 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
10342 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
10343 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
10344 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
10345 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
10346 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
10347 not be installed?</p>
10348
10349 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
10350 please send me an email. :)</p>
10351
10352       </div>
10353       <div class="tags">
10354
10355
10356         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>.
10357
10358
10359       </div>
10360     </div>
10361     <div class="padding"></div>
10362
10363     <div class="entry">
10364       <div class="title">
10365         <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>
10366       </div>
10367       <div class="date">
10368          2nd January 2013
10369       </div>
10370       <div class="body">
10371         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
10372 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
10373 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
10374 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
10375 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
10376 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
10377 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
10378 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
10379 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
10380 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
10381
10382 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
10383 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
10384 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
10385
10386       </div>
10387       <div class="tags">
10388
10389
10390         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>.
10391
10392
10393       </div>
10394     </div>
10395     <div class="padding"></div>
10396
10397     <div class="entry">
10398       <div class="title">
10399         <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>
10400       </div>
10401       <div class="date">
10402         25th December 2012
10403       </div>
10404       <div class="body">
10405         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
10406 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
10407
10408 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
10409 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
10410 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
10411 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
10412 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
10413 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
10414 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
10415 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
10416 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
10417 name.</p>
10418
10419 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
10420 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
10421 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
10422
10423 <blockquote><pre>
10424 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
10425 cd bitcoin
10426 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
10427 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
10428 </pre></blockquote>
10429
10430 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
10431 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
10432 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
10433 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
10434 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
10435 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
10436 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
10437 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
10438 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
10439
10440 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
10441 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
10442 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
10443
10444       </div>
10445       <div class="tags">
10446
10447
10448         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>.
10449
10450
10451       </div>
10452     </div>
10453     <div class="padding"></div>
10454
10455     <div class="entry">
10456       <div class="title">
10457         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
10458       </div>
10459       <div class="date">
10460         21st December 2012
10461       </div>
10462       <div class="body">
10463         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
10464 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
10465 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
10466 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
10467 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
10468 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
10469 is now maintained by a
10470 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
10471 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
10472 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
10473 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
10474 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
10475 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
10476 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
10477 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
10478 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
10479 Corallo in a
10480 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
10481 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
10482 Debian package.</p>
10483
10484 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
10485 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
10486 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
10487 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
10488 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
10489 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
10490 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
10491 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
10492 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
10493 new version to unstable.
10494
10495 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
10496 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
10497 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
10498 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
10499 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
10500 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
10501 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
10502 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
10503 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
10504 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
10505 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
10506 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
10507 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
10508 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
10509 have not tested them.</p>
10510
10511 <p>My
10512 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
10513 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
10514 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
10515 years ago, as can be
10516 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
10517 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
10518 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
10519 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
10520 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
10521 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
10522 the same address as last time,
10523 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
10524
10525       </div>
10526       <div class="tags">
10527
10528
10529         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>.
10530
10531
10532       </div>
10533     </div>
10534     <div class="padding"></div>
10535
10536     <div class="entry">
10537       <div class="title">
10538         <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>
10539       </div>
10540       <div class="date">
10541          7th September 2012
10542       </div>
10543       <div class="body">
10544         <p>As I
10545 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
10546 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
10547 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
10548 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
10549 repository for the project</a>.</p>
10550
10551 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
10552 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
10553 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
10554 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
10555
10556 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
10557 PostScript formats at
10558 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
10559 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
10560
10561       </div>
10562       <div class="tags">
10563
10564
10565         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>.
10566
10567
10568       </div>
10569     </div>
10570     <div class="padding"></div>
10571
10572     <div class="entry">
10573       <div class="title">
10574         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html">Gratulerer med 19-årsdagen, Debian!</a>
10575       </div>
10576       <div class="date">
10577         16th August 2012
10578       </div>
10579       <div class="body">
10580         <p>I dag fyller
10581 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120813">Debian-prosjektet 19
10582 år</a>.  Jeg har fulgt det de siste 12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
10583 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!</p>
10584
10585       </div>
10586       <div class="tags">
10587
10588
10589         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>.
10590
10591
10592       </div>
10593     </div>
10594     <div class="padding"></div>
10595
10596     <div class="entry">
10597       <div class="title">
10598         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
10599       </div>
10600       <div class="date">
10601         24th June 2012
10602       </div>
10603       <div class="body">
10604         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
10605 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
10606 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
10607 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
10608 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
10609 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
10610 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
10611 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
10612 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
10613 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
10614 missing in my book.</p>
10615
10616 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
10617 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
10618 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
10619 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
10620 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
10621 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
10622 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
10623
10624       </div>
10625       <div class="tags">
10626
10627
10628         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>.
10629
10630
10631       </div>
10632     </div>
10633     <div class="padding"></div>
10634
10635     <div class="entry">
10636       <div class="title">
10637         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
10638       </div>
10639       <div class="date">
10640         21st November 2011
10641       </div>
10642       <div class="body">
10643         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
10644 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
10645 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
10646 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
10647 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
10648 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
10649 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
10650 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
10651 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
10652 the tools to do so.</p>
10653
10654 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
10655 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
10656 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
10657 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
10658
10659 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
10660 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
10661 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
10662 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
10663 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
10664 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
10665 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
10666 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
10667
10668 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
10669 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
10670 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
10671
10672 <p><pre>
10673 #!/usr/bin/perl
10674 use strict;
10675 use warnings;
10676 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
10677 BEGIN {
10678     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
10679     my %rhelmodules = (
10680         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
10681         );
10682     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
10683         eval "use $module;";
10684         if ($@) {
10685             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
10686             system("yum install -y $pkg");
10687             eval "use $module;";
10688         }
10689     }
10690 }
10691 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
10692
10693 upgrade_dell();
10694
10695 exit 0;
10696
10697 sub run_firmware_script {
10698     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
10699     unless ($script) {
10700         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
10701         exit 1
10702     }
10703     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
10704
10705     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
10706         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
10707     } else {
10708         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
10709     }
10710 }
10711
10712 sub run_firmware_scripts {
10713     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
10714     # Run firmware packages
10715     for my $dir (@dirs) {
10716         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
10717         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
10718         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
10719             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
10720             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
10721         }
10722         closedir $dh;
10723     }
10724 }
10725
10726 sub download {
10727     my $url = shift;
10728     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
10729     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
10730 }
10731
10732 sub upgrade_dell {
10733     my @dirs;
10734     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
10735     chomp $product;
10736
10737     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
10738
10739         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
10740         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
10741
10742         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
10743             CLEANUP => 1
10744             );
10745         chdir($tmpdir);
10746         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
10747         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
10748         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
10749         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
10750         my $fwopts = "-q";
10751         if (@paths) {
10752             for my $url (@paths) {
10753                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
10754             }
10755             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
10756         } else {
10757             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
10758             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
10759         }
10760         chdir('/');
10761     } else {
10762         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
10763         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
10764     }
10765 }
10766
10767 sub fetch_dell_fw {
10768     my $path = shift;
10769     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
10770     download($url);
10771 }
10772
10773 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
10774 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
10775 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
10776 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
10777     my $filename = shift;
10778
10779     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
10780     chomp $product;
10781     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
10782
10783     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
10784
10785     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
10786     my @paths;
10787     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
10788         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
10789         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
10790         my $oscode;
10791         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
10792             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
10793         } else {
10794             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
10795         }
10796         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
10797         {
10798             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
10799         }
10800     }
10801     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
10802         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
10803
10804         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
10805         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
10806
10807         my $cpath = $component->{path};
10808         for my $path (@paths) {
10809             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
10810                 push(@paths, $cpath);
10811             }
10812         }
10813     }
10814     return @paths;
10815 }
10816 </pre>
10817
10818 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
10819 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
10820 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
10821 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
10822 outdated.</p>
10823
10824       </div>
10825       <div class="tags">
10826
10827
10828         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>.
10829
10830
10831       </div>
10832     </div>
10833     <div class="padding"></div>
10834
10835     <div class="entry">
10836       <div class="title">
10837         <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>
10838       </div>
10839       <div class="date">
10840          4th August 2011
10841       </div>
10842       <div class="body">
10843         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
10844 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
10845 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
10846 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
10847 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
10848 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
10849 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
10850 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
10851 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
10852
10853 <p><blockquote>
10854 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
10855 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
10856 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
10857 </blockquote></p>
10858
10859 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
10860 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
10861 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
10862 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
10863 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
10864 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
10865 hard to explain.</p>
10866
10867 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
10868 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
10869 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
10870 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
10871 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
10872 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
10873 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
10874 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
10875 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
10876 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
10877 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
10878 mode).</p>
10879
10880 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
10881 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
10882 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
10883 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
10884 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
10885 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
10886 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
10887 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
10888 after visiting single user mode.</p>
10889
10890 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
10891 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
10892 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
10893 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
10894 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
10895 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
10896 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
10897 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
10898
10899 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
10900 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
10901 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
10902
10903       </div>
10904       <div class="tags">
10905
10906
10907         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>.
10908
10909
10910       </div>
10911     </div>
10912     <div class="padding"></div>
10913
10914     <div class="entry">
10915       <div class="title">
10916         <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>
10917       </div>
10918       <div class="date">
10919         30th July 2011
10920       </div>
10921       <div class="body">
10922         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
10923 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
10924 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
10925 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
10926 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
10927 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
10928 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
10929 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
10930 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
10931 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
10932 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
10933 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
10934 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
10935
10936 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
10937 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
10938 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
10939 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
10940 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
10941 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
10942 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
10943 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
10944 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
10945
10946 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
10947 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
10948 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
10949 is presented.</p>
10950
10951 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
10952 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
10953 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
10954 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
10955 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
10956 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
10957 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
10958 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
10959 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
10960 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
10961 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
10962 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
10963 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
10964 find time to push this forward.</p>
10965
10966       </div>
10967       <div class="tags">
10968
10969
10970         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>.
10971
10972
10973       </div>
10974     </div>
10975     <div class="padding"></div>
10976
10977     <div class="entry">
10978       <div class="title">
10979         <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>
10980       </div>
10981       <div class="date">
10982         29th July 2011
10983       </div>
10984       <div class="body">
10985         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
10986 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
10987 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
10988 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
10989 issues.</p>
10990
10991 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
10992 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
10993 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
10994
10995 <ol>
10996
10997 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
10998 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
10999 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
11000 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
11001 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
11002 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
11003 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
11004 Debian.</li>
11005
11006 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
11007 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
11008 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
11009 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
11010 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
11011 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
11012 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
11013 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
11014 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
11015 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
11016 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
11017 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
11018 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
11019
11020 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
11021 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
11022 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
11023 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
11024 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
11025 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
11026 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
11027 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
11028 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
11029 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
11030
11031 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
11032 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
11033 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
11034 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
11035 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
11036 latter behaviour.</li>
11037
11038 </ol>
11039
11040 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
11041 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
11042 it do not matter much.</p>
11043
11044 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
11045 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
11046 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
11047
11048       </div>
11049       <div class="tags">
11050
11051
11052         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>.
11053
11054
11055       </div>
11056     </div>
11057     <div class="padding"></div>
11058
11059     <div class="entry">
11060       <div class="title">
11061         <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>
11062       </div>
11063       <div class="date">
11064         26th July 2011
11065       </div>
11066       <div class="body">
11067         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
11068 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
11069 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
11070 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
11071 security support for a few years.</p>
11072
11073 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
11074 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
11075 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
11076 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
11077 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
11078 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
11079 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
11080 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
11081 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
11082 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
11083 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
11084 easier in the future.</p>
11085
11086 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
11087 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
11088 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
11089 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
11090 do not have time for.</p>
11091
11092       </div>
11093       <div class="tags">
11094
11095
11096         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>.
11097
11098
11099       </div>
11100     </div>
11101     <div class="padding"></div>
11102
11103     <div class="entry">
11104       <div class="title">
11105         <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>
11106       </div>
11107       <div class="date">
11108          3rd April 2011
11109       </div>
11110       <div class="body">
11111         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
11112 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
11113 update in English.</p>
11114
11115 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
11116 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
11117 of the British service
11118 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
11119 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
11120 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
11121 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
11122 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
11123 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
11124 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
11125 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
11126 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
11127 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
11128 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
11129 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
11130 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
11131
11132 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
11133 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
11134 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
11135 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
11136 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
11137 public infrastructure.</p>
11138
11139 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
11140 such service?</p>
11141
11142       </div>
11143       <div class="tags">
11144
11145
11146         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>.
11147
11148
11149       </div>
11150     </div>
11151     <div class="padding"></div>
11152
11153     <div class="entry">
11154       <div class="title">
11155         <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>
11156       </div>
11157       <div class="date">
11158         28th January 2011
11159       </div>
11160       <div class="body">
11161         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
11162 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
11163 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
11164 available on the Internet, and check our locally
11165 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
11166 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
11167 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
11168 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
11169 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
11170 out which security holes were present in our free software
11171 collection.</p>
11172
11173 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
11174 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
11175 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
11176 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
11177 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
11178 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
11179 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
11180 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
11181 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
11182 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
11183 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
11184 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
11185 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
11186 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
11187 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
11188 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
11189
11190 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
11191 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
11192 check out, one could look up
11193 <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
11194 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
11195 The most recent one is
11196 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
11197 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
11198 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
11199
11200 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
11201 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
11202 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
11203 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
11204 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
11205 security issues out.</p>
11206
11207 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
11208 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
11209 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
11210 RHEL is providing
11211 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
11212 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
11213 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
11214
11215 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
11216 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
11217 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
11218 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
11219 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
11220 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
11221 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
11222 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
11223 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
11224 established soon.</p>
11225
11226 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
11227 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
11228 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
11229 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
11230 for their packages.</p>
11231
11232       </div>
11233       <div class="tags">
11234
11235
11236         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>.
11237
11238
11239       </div>
11240     </div>
11241     <div class="padding"></div>
11242
11243     <div class="entry">
11244       <div class="title">
11245         <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>
11246       </div>
11247       <div class="date">
11248         23rd January 2011
11249       </div>
11250       <div class="body">
11251         <p>In the
11252 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
11253 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
11254 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
11255 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
11256 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
11257 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
11258 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
11259 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
11260 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
11261 one of my machines like this:</p>
11262
11263 <pre>
11264 loaded modules:
11265 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
11266 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
11267 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
11268 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
11269 10de:03ec pata_amd
11270 10de:03f6 sata_nv
11271 1022:1103 k8temp
11272 109e:036e bttv
11273 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
11274 11ab:4364 sky2
11275 </pre>
11276
11277 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
11278 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
11279
11280 <pre>
11281 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
11282     echo loaded pci modules:
11283     (
11284         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
11285         for address in * ; do
11286             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
11287                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
11288                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
11289                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
11290                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
11291                     echo "$id $module"
11292                 fi
11293             fi
11294         done
11295     )
11296     echo
11297 fi
11298 </pre>
11299
11300 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
11301 mappings:</p>
11302
11303 <pre>
11304 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
11305     echo loaded usb modules:
11306     (
11307         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
11308         for address in * ; do
11309             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
11310                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
11311                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
11312                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
11313                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
11314                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
11315                         echo "$id $module"
11316                     fi
11317                 fi
11318             fi
11319         done
11320     )
11321     echo
11322 fi
11323 </pre>
11324
11325 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
11326 well.</p>
11327
11328       </div>
11329       <div class="tags">
11330
11331
11332         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>.
11333
11334
11335       </div>
11336     </div>
11337     <div class="padding"></div>
11338
11339     <div class="entry">
11340       <div class="title">
11341         <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>
11342       </div>
11343       <div class="date">
11344         22nd December 2010
11345       </div>
11346       <div class="body">
11347         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
11348 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
11349 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
11350 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
11351 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
11352 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
11353 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
11354 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
11355 university.</p>
11356
11357 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
11358 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
11359 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
11360 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
11361 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
11362 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
11363 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
11364 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
11365
11366 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
11367 I perform on a new model.</p>
11368
11369 <ul>
11370
11371 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
11372 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
11373 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
11374
11375 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
11376 installation, X.org is working.</li>
11377
11378 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
11379 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
11380 reported by the program.</li>
11381
11382 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
11383 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
11384 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
11385 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
11386 normally test this by playing
11387 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
11388 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
11389
11390 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
11391 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
11392
11393 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
11394 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
11395
11396 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
11397 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
11398
11399 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
11400 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
11401 few.</li>
11402
11403 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
11404 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
11405 notice this.</li>
11406
11407 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
11408 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
11409 resume.</li>
11410
11411 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
11412 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
11413 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
11414 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
11415 not.</li>
11416
11417 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
11418 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
11419 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
11420 existence.</li>
11421
11422 </ul>
11423
11424 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
11425 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
11426 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
11427 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
11428 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
11429 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
11430 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
11431 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
11432
11433       </div>
11434       <div class="tags">
11435
11436
11437         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>.
11438
11439
11440       </div>
11441     </div>
11442     <div class="padding"></div>
11443
11444     <div class="entry">
11445       <div class="title">
11446         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
11447       </div>
11448       <div class="date">
11449         11th December 2010
11450       </div>
11451       <div class="body">
11452         <p>As I continue to explore
11453 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
11454 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
11455 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
11456
11457 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
11458 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
11459 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
11460 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
11461 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
11462 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
11463 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
11464 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
11465 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
11466 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
11467 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
11468 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
11469 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
11470 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
11471 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
11472 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
11473 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
11474 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
11475 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
11476 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
11477
11478 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
11479 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
11480 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
11481 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
11482 If the Skolelinux foundation
11483 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
11484 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
11485 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
11486 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
11487 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
11488 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
11489 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
11490 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
11491
11492 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
11493 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
11494 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
11495 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
11496 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
11497 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
11498 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
11499 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
11500 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
11501 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
11502 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
11503 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
11504 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
11505 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
11506 currencies.</p>
11507
11508 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
11509 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
11510 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
11511 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
11512 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
11513 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
11514 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
11515 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
11516 BitCoins.  Check out
11517 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
11518 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
11519 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
11520 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
11521 yet.</p>
11522
11523 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
11524 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
11525 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
11526 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
11527 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
11528
11529       </div>
11530       <div class="tags">
11531
11532
11533         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>.
11534
11535
11536       </div>
11537     </div>
11538     <div class="padding"></div>
11539
11540     <div class="entry">
11541       <div class="title">
11542         <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>
11543       </div>
11544       <div class="date">
11545         10th December 2010
11546       </div>
11547       <div class="body">
11548         <p>With this weeks lawless
11549 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
11550 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
11551 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
11552 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
11553 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
11554 A blog post from
11555 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
11556 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
11557 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
11558 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
11559 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
11560 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
11561 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
11562
11563 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
11564 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
11565 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
11566 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
11567 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
11568 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
11569 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
11570 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
11571 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
11572 Debian</a> soon.</p>
11573
11574 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
11575 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
11576 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
11577 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
11578 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
11579 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
11580 you can even get
11581 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
11582 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
11583 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
11584 on the current exchange rates.</p>
11585
11586 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
11587 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
11588 donations to the address
11589 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
11590
11591       </div>
11592       <div class="tags">
11593
11594
11595         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>.
11596
11597
11598       </div>
11599     </div>
11600     <div class="padding"></div>
11601
11602     <div class="entry">
11603       <div class="title">
11604         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
11605       </div>
11606       <div class="date">
11607         27th November 2010
11608       </div>
11609       <div class="body">
11610         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
11611 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
11612 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
11613 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
11614 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
11615 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
11616 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
11617 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
11618
11619 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
11620 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
11621 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
11622 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
11623 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
11624 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
11625 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
11626 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
11627 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
11628 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
11629 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
11630
11631 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
11632 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
11633 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
11634 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
11635 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
11636 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
11637 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
11638 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
11639 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
11640 what is going on.</p>
11641
11642       </div>
11643       <div class="tags">
11644
11645
11646         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>.
11647
11648
11649       </div>
11650     </div>
11651     <div class="padding"></div>
11652
11653     <div class="entry">
11654       <div class="title">
11655         <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>
11656       </div>
11657       <div class="date">
11658         22nd November 2010
11659       </div>
11660       <div class="body">
11661         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
11662 upgrade testing of the
11663 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
11664 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
11665 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
11666 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
11667
11668 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
11669
11670 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
11671
11672 <blockquote><p>
11673   apache2.2-bin
11674   aptdaemon
11675   baobab
11676   binfmt-support
11677   browser-plugin-gnash
11678   cheese-common
11679   cli-common
11680   cups-pk-helper
11681   dmz-cursor-theme
11682   empathy
11683   empathy-common
11684   freedesktop-sound-theme
11685   freeglut3
11686   gconf-defaults-service
11687   gdm-themes
11688   gedit-plugins
11689   geoclue
11690   geoclue-hostip
11691   geoclue-localnet
11692   geoclue-manual
11693   geoclue-yahoo
11694   gnash
11695   gnash-common
11696   gnome
11697   gnome-backgrounds
11698   gnome-cards-data
11699   gnome-codec-install
11700   gnome-core
11701   gnome-desktop-environment
11702   gnome-disk-utility
11703   gnome-screenshot
11704   gnome-search-tool
11705   gnome-session-canberra
11706   gnome-system-log
11707   gnome-themes-extras
11708   gnome-themes-more
11709   gnome-user-share
11710   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
11711   gstreamer0.10-tools
11712   gtk2-engines
11713   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
11714   gtk2-engines-smooth
11715   hamster-applet
11716   libapache2-mod-dnssd
11717   libapr1
11718   libaprutil1
11719   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
11720   libaprutil1-ldap
11721   libart2.0-cil
11722   libboost-date-time1.42.0
11723   libboost-python1.42.0
11724   libboost-thread1.42.0
11725   libchamplain-0.4-0
11726   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
11727   libcheese-gtk18
11728   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
11729   libcryptui0
11730   libdiscid0
11731   libelf1
11732   libepc-1.0-2
11733   libepc-common
11734   libepc-ui-1.0-2
11735   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
11736   libfreerdp0
11737   libgconf2.0-cil
11738   libgdata-common
11739   libgdata7
11740   libgdu-gtk0
11741   libgee2
11742   libgeoclue0
11743   libgexiv2-0
11744   libgif4
11745   libglade2.0-cil
11746   libglib2.0-cil
11747   libgmime2.4-cil
11748   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
11749   libgnome2.24-cil
11750   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
11751   libgpod-common
11752   libgpod4
11753   libgtk2.0-cil
11754   libgtkglext1
11755   libgtksourceview2.0-common
11756   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
11757   libmono-addins0.2-cil
11758   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
11759   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
11760   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
11761   libmono-posix2.0-cil
11762   libmono-security2.0-cil
11763   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
11764   libmono-system2.0-cil
11765   libmtp8
11766   libmusicbrainz3-6
11767   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
11768   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
11769   libopal3.6.8
11770   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
11771   libpt2.6.7
11772   libpython2.6
11773   librpm1
11774   librpmio1
11775   libsdl1.2debian
11776   libsrtp0
11777   libssh-4
11778   libtelepathy-farsight0
11779   libtelepathy-glib0
11780   libtidy-0.99-0
11781   media-player-info
11782   mesa-utils
11783   mono-2.0-gac
11784   mono-gac
11785   mono-runtime
11786   nautilus-sendto
11787   nautilus-sendto-empathy
11788   p7zip-full
11789   pkg-config
11790   python-aptdaemon
11791   python-aptdaemon-gtk
11792   python-axiom
11793   python-beautifulsoup
11794   python-bugbuddy
11795   python-clientform
11796   python-coherence
11797   python-configobj
11798   python-crypto
11799   python-cupshelpers
11800   python-elementtree
11801   python-epsilon
11802   python-evolution
11803   python-feedparser
11804   python-gdata
11805   python-gdbm
11806   python-gst0.10
11807   python-gtkglext1
11808   python-gtksourceview2
11809   python-httplib2
11810   python-louie
11811   python-mako
11812   python-markupsafe
11813   python-mechanize
11814   python-nevow
11815   python-notify
11816   python-opengl
11817   python-openssl
11818   python-pam
11819   python-pkg-resources
11820   python-pyasn1
11821   python-pysqlite2
11822   python-rdflib
11823   python-serial
11824   python-tagpy
11825   python-twisted-bin
11826   python-twisted-conch
11827   python-twisted-core
11828   python-twisted-web
11829   python-utidylib
11830   python-webkit
11831   python-xdg
11832   python-zope.interface
11833   remmina
11834   remmina-plugin-data
11835   remmina-plugin-rdp
11836   remmina-plugin-vnc
11837   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
11838   rhythmbox-plugins
11839   rpm-common
11840   rpm2cpio
11841   seahorse-plugins
11842   shotwell
11843   software-center
11844   system-config-printer-udev
11845   telepathy-gabble
11846   telepathy-mission-control-5
11847   telepathy-salut
11848   tomboy
11849   totem
11850   totem-coherence
11851   totem-mozilla
11852   totem-plugins
11853   transmission-common
11854   xdg-user-dirs
11855   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
11856   xserver-xephyr
11857 </p></blockquote>
11858
11859 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
11860
11861 <blockquote><p>
11862   cheese
11863   ekiga
11864   eog
11865   epiphany-extensions
11866   evolution-exchange
11867   fast-user-switch-applet
11868   file-roller
11869   gcalctool
11870   gconf-editor
11871   gdm
11872   gedit
11873   gedit-common
11874   gnome-games
11875   gnome-games-data
11876   gnome-nettool
11877   gnome-system-tools
11878   gnome-themes
11879   gnuchess
11880   gucharmap
11881   guile-1.8-libs
11882   libavahi-ui0
11883   libdmx1
11884   libgalago3
11885   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
11886   libgtksourceview2.0-0
11887   liblircclient0
11888   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
11889   libspeexdsp1
11890   libsvga1
11891   rhythmbox
11892   seahorse
11893   sound-juicer
11894   system-config-printer
11895   totem-common
11896   transmission-gtk
11897   vinagre
11898   vino
11899 </p></blockquote>
11900
11901 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
11902
11903 <blockquote><p>
11904   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
11905 </p></blockquote>
11906
11907 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
11908
11909 <blockquote><p>
11910 [nothing]
11911 </p></blockquote>
11912
11913 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
11914
11915 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
11916
11917 <blockquote><p>
11918   ksmserver
11919 </p></blockquote>
11920
11921 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
11922
11923 <blockquote><p>
11924   kwin
11925   network-manager-kde
11926 </p></blockquote>
11927
11928 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
11929
11930 <blockquote><p>
11931   arts
11932   dolphin
11933   freespacenotifier
11934   google-gadgets-gst
11935   google-gadgets-xul
11936   kappfinder
11937   kcalc
11938   kcharselect
11939   kde-core
11940   kde-plasma-desktop
11941   kde-standard
11942   kde-window-manager
11943   kdeartwork
11944   kdeartwork-emoticons
11945   kdeartwork-style
11946   kdeartwork-theme-icon
11947   kdebase
11948   kdebase-apps
11949   kdebase-workspace
11950   kdebase-workspace-bin
11951   kdebase-workspace-data
11952   kdeeject
11953   kdelibs
11954   kdeplasma-addons
11955   kdeutils
11956   kdewallpapers
11957   kdf
11958   kfloppy
11959   kgpg
11960   khelpcenter4
11961   kinfocenter
11962   konq-plugins-l10n
11963   konqueror-nsplugins
11964   kscreensaver
11965   kscreensaver-xsavers
11966   ktimer
11967   kwrite
11968   libgle3
11969   libkde4-ruby1.8
11970   libkonq5
11971   libkonq5-templates
11972   libnetpbm10
11973   libplasma-ruby
11974   libplasma-ruby1.8
11975   libqt4-ruby1.8
11976   marble-data
11977   marble-plugins
11978   netpbm
11979   nuvola-icon-theme
11980   plasma-dataengines-workspace
11981   plasma-desktop
11982   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
11983   plasma-runners-addons
11984   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
11985   plasma-scriptengine-python
11986   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
11987   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
11988   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
11989   plasma-scriptengines
11990   plasma-wallpapers-addons
11991   plasma-widget-folderview
11992   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
11993   ruby
11994   sweeper
11995   update-notifier-kde
11996   xscreensaver-data-extra
11997   xscreensaver-gl
11998   xscreensaver-gl-extra
11999   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
12000 </p></blockquote>
12001
12002 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12003
12004 <blockquote><p>
12005   ark
12006   google-gadgets-common
12007   google-gadgets-qt
12008   htdig
12009   kate
12010   kdebase-bin
12011   kdebase-data
12012   kdepasswd
12013   kfind
12014   klipper
12015   konq-plugins
12016   konqueror
12017   ksysguard
12018   ksysguardd
12019   libarchive1
12020   libcln6
12021   libeet1
12022   libeina-svn-06
12023   libggadget-1.0-0b
12024   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
12025   libgps19
12026   libkdecorations4
12027   libkephal4
12028   libkonq4
12029   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
12030   libkscreensaver5
12031   libksgrd4
12032   libksignalplotter4
12033   libkunitconversion4
12034   libkwineffects1a
12035   libmarblewidget4
12036   libntrack-qt4-1
12037   libntrack0
12038   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
12039   libplasmaclock4a
12040   libplasmagenericshell4
12041   libprocesscore4a
12042   libprocessui4a
12043   libqalculate5
12044   libqedje0a
12045   libqtruby4shared2
12046   libqzion0a
12047   libruby1.8
12048   libscim8c2a
12049   libsmokekdecore4-3
12050   libsmokekdeui4-3
12051   libsmokekfile3
12052   libsmokekhtml3
12053   libsmokekio3
12054   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
12055   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
12056   libsmokekparts3
12057   libsmokektexteditor3
12058   libsmokekutils3
12059   libsmokenepomuk3
12060   libsmokephonon3
12061   libsmokeplasma3
12062   libsmokeqtcore4-3
12063   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
12064   libsmokeqtgui4-3
12065   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
12066   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
12067   libsmokeqtscript4-3
12068   libsmokeqtsql4-3
12069   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
12070   libsmokeqttest4-3
12071   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
12072   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
12073   libsmokeqtxml4-3
12074   libsmokesolid3
12075   libsmokesoprano3
12076   libtaskmanager4a
12077   libtidy-0.99-0
12078   libweather-ion4a
12079   libxklavier16
12080   libxxf86misc1
12081   okteta
12082   oxygencursors
12083   plasma-dataengines-addons
12084   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
12085   plasma-widget-lancelot
12086   plasma-widgets-addons
12087   plasma-widgets-workspace
12088   polkit-kde-1
12089   ruby1.8
12090   systemsettings
12091   update-notifier-common
12092 </p></blockquote>
12093
12094 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
12095 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
12096 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
12097 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
12098
12099       </div>
12100       <div class="tags">
12101
12102
12103         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>.
12104
12105
12106       </div>
12107     </div>
12108     <div class="padding"></div>
12109
12110     <div class="entry">
12111       <div class="title">
12112         <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>
12113       </div>
12114       <div class="date">
12115         22nd November 2010
12116       </div>
12117       <div class="body">
12118         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
12119 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
12120 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
12121 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
12122 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
12123 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
12124 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
12125 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
12126 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
12127
12128 <p>I found
12129 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
12130 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
12131 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
12132 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
12133 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
12134 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
12135
12136 <pre>
12137 #!/bin/sh
12138
12139 # Based on
12140 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
12141
12142 set -e
12143 set -x
12144
12145 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
12146     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
12147     exit 1
12148 else
12149     host="$1"
12150 fi
12151
12152 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
12153     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
12154     exit 1
12155 fi
12156
12157 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
12158 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12159 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12160 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
12161
12162 img=$host.img
12163 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
12164 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
12165
12166 parted $img mklabel msdos
12167 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
12168 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
12169 parted $img set 1 boot on
12170
12171 modprobe dm-mod
12172 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
12173 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
12174
12175 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
12176 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
12177 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
12178
12179 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
12180 losetup -d /dev/loop0
12181 </pre>
12182
12183 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
12184 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
12185
12186 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
12187 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
12188 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
12189 seem to work just fine.</p>
12190
12191       </div>
12192       <div class="tags">
12193
12194
12195         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>.
12196
12197
12198       </div>
12199     </div>
12200     <div class="padding"></div>
12201
12202     <div class="entry">
12203       <div class="title">
12204         <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>
12205       </div>
12206       <div class="date">
12207         20th November 2010
12208       </div>
12209       <div class="body">
12210         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
12211 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
12212 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
12213 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
12214
12215 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
12216 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
12217 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
12218
12219 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
12220
12221 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12222
12223 <blockquote><p>
12224   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
12225   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
12226   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
12227   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
12228   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
12229   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
12230   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
12231   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
12232   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
12233   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
12234   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
12235   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
12236   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
12237   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
12238   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
12239   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
12240   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
12241   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
12242   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
12243   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
12244   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
12245   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
12246   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
12247   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
12248   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
12249   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
12250   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
12251   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
12252   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
12253   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
12254   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
12255   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
12256   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
12257   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
12258   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
12259   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
12260   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
12261   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
12262   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
12263   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
12264   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
12265   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
12266   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
12267   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
12268   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
12269   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
12270   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
12271   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
12272   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
12273   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
12274   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
12275   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
12276   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
12277   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
12278   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
12279   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
12280   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
12281   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
12282   zip
12283 </p></blockquote>
12284
12285 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
12286
12287 <blockquote><p>
12288   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
12289   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
12290   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
12291   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
12292   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
12293   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
12294   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
12295   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
12296   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
12297   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
12298   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
12299   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
12300   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
12301   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
12302   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
12303   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
12304   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
12305   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
12306   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
12307   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
12308   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
12309   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
12310   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
12311   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
12312   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
12313   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
12314   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
12315   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
12316   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
12317 </p></blockquote>
12318
12319 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12320
12321 <blockquote><p>
12322   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
12323 </p></blockquote>
12324
12325 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12326
12327 <blockquote><p>
12328 [nothing]
12329 </p></blockquote>
12330
12331 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
12332
12333 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12334
12335 <blockquote><p>
12336   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
12337   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
12338   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
12339   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
12340   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
12341   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
12342   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
12343   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
12344   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
12345   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
12346   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
12347   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
12348   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
12349   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
12350   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
12351   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
12352   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
12353   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
12354   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
12355   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
12356   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
12357   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
12358   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
12359   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
12360   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
12361   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
12362   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
12363   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
12364   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
12365   ttf-sazanami-gothic
12366 </p></blockquote>
12367
12368 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12369
12370 <blockquote><p>
12371   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
12372   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
12373   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
12374   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
12375   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
12376   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
12377   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
12378   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
12379   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
12380   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
12381   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
12382   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
12383   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
12384   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
12385   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
12386   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
12387   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
12388   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
12389   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
12390   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
12391   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
12392   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
12393   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
12394   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
12395   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
12396   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
12397   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
12398   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
12399   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
12400   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
12401   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
12402   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
12403   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
12404 </p></blockquote>
12405
12406 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12407
12408 <blockquote><p>
12409   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
12410   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
12411   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
12412   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
12413   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
12414   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
12415   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
12416 </p></blockquote>
12417
12418 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12419
12420 <blockquote><p>
12421   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
12422 </p></blockquote>
12423
12424       </div>
12425       <div class="tags">
12426
12427
12428         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>.
12429
12430
12431       </div>
12432     </div>
12433     <div class="padding"></div>
12434
12435     <div class="entry">
12436       <div class="title">
12437         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
12438       </div>
12439       <div class="date">
12440         20th November 2010
12441       </div>
12442       <div class="body">
12443         <p>Answering
12444 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
12445 call from the Gnash project</a> for
12446 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
12447 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
12448 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
12449 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
12450 releases out more often.</p>
12451
12452 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
12453 I have considered setting up a <a
12454 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
12455 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
12456 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
12457 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
12458 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
12459 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
12460 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
12461 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
12462 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
12463 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
12464 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
12465 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
12466
12467       </div>
12468       <div class="tags">
12469
12470
12471         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>.
12472
12473
12474       </div>
12475     </div>
12476     <div class="padding"></div>
12477
12478     <div class="entry">
12479       <div class="title">
12480         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
12481       </div>
12482       <div class="date">
12483          9th November 2010
12484       </div>
12485       <div class="body">
12486         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
12487
12488 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
12489 3D linked in from
12490 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
12491 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
12492
12493       </div>
12494       <div class="tags">
12495
12496
12497         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>.
12498
12499
12500       </div>
12501     </div>
12502     <div class="padding"></div>
12503
12504     <div class="entry">
12505       <div class="title">
12506         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
12507       </div>
12508       <div class="date">
12509         24th October 2010
12510       </div>
12511       <div class="body">
12512         <p>Some updates.</p>
12513
12514 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
12515 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
12516 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
12517 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
12518 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
12519 :)</p>
12520
12521 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
12522 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
12523 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
12524 It is called
12525 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
12526 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
12527 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
12528 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
12529 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
12530 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
12531
12532 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
12533 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
12534 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
12535 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
12536 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
12537 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
12538 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
12539 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
12540 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
12541 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
12542
12543       </div>
12544       <div class="tags">
12545
12546
12547         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>.
12548
12549
12550       </div>
12551     </div>
12552     <div class="padding"></div>
12553
12554     <div class="entry">
12555       <div class="title">
12556         <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>
12557       </div>
12558       <div class="date">
12559          4th September 2010
12560       </div>
12561       <div class="body">
12562         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
12563 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
12564 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
12565 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
12566 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
12567 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
12568 installed.</p>
12569
12570 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
12571 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
12572 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
12573 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
12574 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
12575 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
12576 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
12577 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
12578 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
12579
12580 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
12581 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
12582 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
12583 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
12584 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
12585 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
12586 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
12587 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
12588 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
12589 pages they want to visit.</p>
12590
12591 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
12592 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
12593 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
12594 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
12595 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
12596 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
12597 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
12598 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
12599 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
12600 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
12601 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
12602
12603       </div>
12604       <div class="tags">
12605
12606
12607         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>.
12608
12609
12610       </div>
12611     </div>
12612     <div class="padding"></div>
12613
12614     <div class="entry">
12615       <div class="title">
12616         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
12617       </div>
12618       <div class="date">
12619         27th July 2010
12620       </div>
12621       <div class="body">
12622         <p>I discovered this while doing
12623 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
12624 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
12625 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
12626 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
12627 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
12628
12629 <p>An example is from todays
12630 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
12631 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
12632 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
12633 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
12634 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
12635 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
12636 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
12637
12638 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
12639
12640 <blockquote><pre>
12641 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
12642  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
12643   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
12644 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
12645  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
12646 </pre></blockquote>
12647
12648 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
12649 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
12650 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
12651 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
12652 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
12653 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
12654 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
12655 of dependency loops.</p>
12656
12657 <p>Thanks to
12658 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
12659 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
12660 dependencies
12661 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
12662 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
12663
12664 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
12665 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
12666 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
12667 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
12668 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
12669 it.</p>
12670
12671       </div>
12672       <div class="tags">
12673
12674
12675         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>.
12676
12677
12678       </div>
12679     </div>
12680     <div class="padding"></div>
12681
12682     <div class="entry">
12683       <div class="title">
12684         <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>
12685       </div>
12686       <div class="date">
12687         17th July 2010
12688       </div>
12689       <div class="body">
12690         <p>This is a
12691 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
12692 on my
12693 <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
12694 work</a> on
12695 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
12696 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
12697
12698 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
12699 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
12700 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
12701 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
12702
12703 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
12704 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
12705 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
12706
12707 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
12708
12709 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
12710 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
12711 the web.
12712
12713 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
12714 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
12715 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
12716 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
12717 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
12718 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
12719
12720 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
12721 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
12722 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
12723 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
12724 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
12725 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
12726 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
12727 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
12728 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
12729 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
12730 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
12731 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
12732 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
12733 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
12734 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
12735 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
12736
12737 <blockquote><pre>
12738 ldapsearch -h ldap \
12739   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
12740   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
12741   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
12742   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
12743   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
12744   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
12745
12746 ldapsearch -h ldap \
12747   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
12748   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
12749   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
12750   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
12751   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
12752 </pre></blockquote>
12753
12754 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
12755 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
12756 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
12757 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12758 also exist.</p>
12759
12760 <blockquote><pre>
12761 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12762 objectclass: top
12763 objectclass: dnsdomain
12764 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
12765 dc: tjener
12766 arecord: 10.0.2.2
12767 associateddomain: tjener.intern
12768
12769 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12770 objectclass: top
12771 objectclass: dnsdomain2
12772 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
12773 dc: 2
12774 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
12775 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
12776 </pre></blockquote>
12777
12778 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
12779 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
12780 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
12781 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
12782 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
12783 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
12784 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
12785 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
12786 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
12787 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
12788 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
12789 instead.</p>
12790
12791 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
12792 like this:</p>
12793
12794 <blockquote><pre>
12795 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
12796   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
12797   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
12798   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
12799   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
12800   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
12801
12802 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
12803   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
12804 </pre></blockquote>
12805
12806 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
12807 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
12808 reverse lookups.</p>
12809
12810 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
12811 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
12812 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
12813 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
12814
12815 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
12816 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
12817 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
12818
12819 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
12820 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
12821 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
12822 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
12823 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
12824
12825 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
12826 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
12827 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
12828 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
12829 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
12830
12831 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
12832 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
12833 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
12834 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
12835 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
12836 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
12837
12838 <blockquote><pre>
12839 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
12840     SUP top
12841     AUXILIARY
12842     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
12843           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
12844           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
12845           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
12846           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
12847     ))
12848 </pre></blockquote>
12849
12850 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
12851 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
12852 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
12853 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
12854 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
12855 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
12856
12857 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
12858
12859 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
12860 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
12861 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
12862 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
12863 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
12864
12865 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
12866 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
12867 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
12868 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
12869
12870 <blockquote><pre>
12871 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
12872 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
12873 </pre></blockquote>
12874
12875 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
12876 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
12877 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
12878 search result is this entry:</p>
12879
12880 <blockquote><pre>
12881 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12882 cn: dhcp
12883 objectClass: top
12884 objectClass: dhcpServer
12885 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12886 </pre></blockquote>
12887
12888 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
12889 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
12890 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
12891 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
12892 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
12893 The search result is this entry:</p>
12894
12895 <blockquote><pre>
12896 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12897 cn: DHCP Config
12898 objectClass: top
12899 objectClass: dhcpService
12900 objectClass: dhcpOptions
12901 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12902 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
12903 dhcpStatements: authoritative
12904 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
12905 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
12906 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
12907 </pre></blockquote>
12908
12909 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
12910 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
12911 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
12912 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
12913 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
12914 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
12915 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
12916 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
12917 related computer objects.</p>
12918
12919 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
12920 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
12921 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
12922 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
12923 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
12924 like:</p>
12925
12926 <blockquote><pre>
12927 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12928 cn: hostname
12929 objectClass: top
12930 objectClass: dhcpHost
12931 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
12932 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
12933 </pre></blockquote>
12934
12935 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
12936 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
12937 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
12938 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
12939 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
12940 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
12941 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
12942 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
12943 structural object class.
12944
12945 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
12946
12947 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
12948 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
12949 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
12950 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
12951 in the configuration.</p>
12952
12953 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
12954 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
12955 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
12956 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
12957 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
12958 structure.</p>
12959
12960 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
12961 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
12962
12963 <blockquote><pre>
12964 ou=services
12965   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
12966     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
12967     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
12968       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
12969         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
12970     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
12971       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
12972         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
12973     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
12974       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
12975 </pre></blockquote>
12976
12977 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
12978 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
12979 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
12980 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
12981
12982 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
12983 like this:</p>
12984
12985 <blockquote><pre>
12986 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
12987 dc: hostname
12988 objectClass: top
12989 objectClass: dhcpHost
12990 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
12991 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
12992 associateddomain: hostname.intern
12993 arecord: 10.11.12.13
12994 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
12995 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
12996 </pre></blockquote>
12997
12998 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
12999 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
13000 auxiliary object class.</p>
13001
13002       </div>
13003       <div class="tags">
13004
13005
13006         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>.
13007
13008
13009       </div>
13010     </div>
13011     <div class="padding"></div>
13012
13013     <div class="entry">
13014       <div class="title">
13015         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
13016       </div>
13017       <div class="date">
13018         14th July 2010
13019       </div>
13020       <div class="body">
13021         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
13022 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
13023 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
13024 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
13025 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
13026
13027 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
13028 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
13029
13030 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
13031 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
13032 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
13033 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
13034 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
13035 to a slave DNS server.</p>
13036
13037 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
13038 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
13039 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
13040 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
13041 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
13042 seem to work.</p>
13043
13044 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
13045 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
13046 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
13047 this:</p>
13048
13049 <blockquote><pre>
13050   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13051   cn: hostname
13052   objectClass: dhcphost
13053   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13054   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
13055   associateddomain: hostname.intern
13056   arecord: 10.11.12.13
13057   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
13058   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
13059   ldapconfigsound: Y
13060 </pre></blockquote>
13061
13062 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
13063 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
13064 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
13065 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
13066
13067 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
13068 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
13069 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
13070 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
13071 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
13072 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
13073 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
13074 might be a good place to put it.</p>
13075
13076 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13077 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13078
13079       </div>
13080       <div class="tags">
13081
13082
13083         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>.
13084
13085
13086       </div>
13087     </div>
13088     <div class="padding"></div>
13089
13090     <div class="entry">
13091       <div class="title">
13092         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
13093       </div>
13094       <div class="date">
13095         11th July 2010
13096       </div>
13097       <div class="body">
13098         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
13099 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
13100 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
13101 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
13102
13103 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
13104 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
13105 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
13106 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
13107 LTSP clients.</p>
13108
13109 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
13110 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
13111 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
13112
13113 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
13114 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
13115 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
13116
13117 <blockquote><pre>
13118 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
13119 #
13120 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
13121 #
13122 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
13123 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
13124 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
13125 #
13126 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
13127 # existence of attribute names.
13128 #
13129 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
13130 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
13131 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
13132 #
13133 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
13134 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
13135 #
13136 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
13137 #     SUP top
13138 #     AUXILIARY
13139 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
13140
13141 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
13142 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
13143     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
13144     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
13145         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
13146         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
13147             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
13148             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
13149             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
13150             # bass value on to clients
13151             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
13152         done
13153     done
13154 fi
13155 </pre></blockquote>
13156
13157 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
13158 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
13159 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
13160 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
13161 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
13162
13163 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13164 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13165
13166 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
13167 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
13168 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
13169 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
13170 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
13171 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
13172
13173       </div>
13174       <div class="tags">
13175
13176
13177         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>.
13178
13179
13180       </div>
13181     </div>
13182     <div class="padding"></div>
13183
13184     <div class="entry">
13185       <div class="title">
13186         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
13187       </div>
13188       <div class="date">
13189          9th July 2010
13190       </div>
13191       <div class="body">
13192         <p>Since
13193 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
13194 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
13195 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
13196 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
13197 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
13198 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
13199 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
13200 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
13201 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
13202 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
13203 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
13204 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
13205 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
13206
13207       </div>
13208       <div class="tags">
13209
13210
13211         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>.
13212
13213
13214       </div>
13215     </div>
13216     <div class="padding"></div>
13217
13218     <div class="entry">
13219       <div class="title">
13220         <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>
13221       </div>
13222       <div class="date">
13223          3rd July 2010
13224       </div>
13225       <div class="body">
13226         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
13227 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
13228 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
13229 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
13230 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
13231 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
13232 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
13233 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
13234
13235 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
13236 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
13237 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
13238 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
13239 publish the difference.</p>
13240
13241 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13242
13243 <blockquote><p>
13244   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
13245   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
13246   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
13247   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
13248   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
13249   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
13250   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
13251   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
13252 </p></blockquote>
13253
13254 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
13255
13256 <blockquote><p>
13257   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
13258   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
13259   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
13260   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
13261   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
13262   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
13263   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
13264   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
13265   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
13266   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
13267   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
13268   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
13269   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
13270   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
13271   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
13272   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
13273   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
13274   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
13275   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
13276   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
13277 </p></blockquote>
13278
13279 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13280
13281 <blockquote><p>
13282   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
13283   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
13284   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
13285   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
13286   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
13287   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
13288   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
13289   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
13290   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
13291   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
13292   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
13293   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
13294   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
13295   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
13296   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
13297   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
13298   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
13299   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
13300   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
13301   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
13302   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
13303 </p></blockquote>
13304
13305 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13306
13307 <blockquote><p>
13308   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
13309   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
13310   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
13311 </p></blockquote>
13312
13313 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
13314 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
13315 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
13316 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
13317 the difference somewhat.
13318
13319       </div>
13320       <div class="tags">
13321
13322
13323         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>.
13324
13325
13326       </div>
13327     </div>
13328     <div class="padding"></div>
13329
13330     <div class="entry">
13331       <div class="title">
13332         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
13333       </div>
13334       <div class="date">
13335         28th June 2010
13336       </div>
13337       <div class="body">
13338         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
13339 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
13340 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
13341 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
13342 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
13343 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
13344 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
13345 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
13346 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
13347 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
13348
13349 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
13350 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
13351 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
13352 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
13353 released.</p>
13354
13355 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
13356 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
13357 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
13358 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
13359
13360 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
13361 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13362
13363 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
13364 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
13365 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
13366 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
13367 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
13368
13369       </div>
13370       <div class="tags">
13371
13372
13373         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>.
13374
13375
13376       </div>
13377     </div>
13378     <div class="padding"></div>
13379
13380     <div class="entry">
13381       <div class="title">
13382         <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>
13383       </div>
13384       <div class="date">
13385         24th June 2010
13386       </div>
13387       <div class="body">
13388         <p>A while back, I
13389 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
13390 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
13391 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
13392 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
13393
13394 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
13395 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
13396 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
13397 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
13398
13399 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
13400 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
13401 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
13402 Debian Edu.</p>
13403
13404 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
13405 the
13406 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
13407 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
13408 available today from IETF.</p>
13409
13410 <pre>
13411 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
13412 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
13413 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
13414  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
13415         NAME 'dhcpHost'
13416         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
13417 -       SUP top
13418 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
13419         MUST cn
13420         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
13421         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
13422 </pre>
13423
13424 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
13425 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
13426 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
13427
13428 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
13429 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13430
13431       </div>
13432       <div class="tags">
13433
13434
13435         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>.
13436
13437
13438       </div>
13439     </div>
13440     <div class="padding"></div>
13441
13442     <div class="entry">
13443       <div class="title">
13444         <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>
13445       </div>
13446       <div class="date">
13447         16th June 2010
13448       </div>
13449       <div class="body">
13450         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
13451 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
13452 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
13453 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
13454 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
13455 this:
13456
13457 <blockquote><pre>
13458 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
13459 tasksel --new-install
13460 </pre></blockquote>
13461
13462 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
13463 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
13464 any output what so ever.
13465
13466 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
13467 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
13468 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
13469 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
13470 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
13471 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
13472 code like this:
13473
13474 <blockquote><pre>
13475 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
13476 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
13477 $cmd
13478 </pre></blockquote>
13479
13480 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
13481 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
13482 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
13483 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
13484 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
13485 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
13486 installation.</p>
13487
13488 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
13489 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
13490 like this.</p>
13491
13492       </div>
13493       <div class="tags">
13494
13495
13496         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>.
13497
13498
13499       </div>
13500     </div>
13501     <div class="padding"></div>
13502
13503     <div class="entry">
13504       <div class="title">
13505         <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>
13506       </div>
13507       <div class="date">
13508         13th June 2010
13509       </div>
13510       <div class="body">
13511         <p>My
13512 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
13513 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
13514 finally made the upgrade logs available from
13515 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
13516 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
13517 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
13518 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
13519
13520 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
13521 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
13522 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
13523 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
13524 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
13525 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
13526 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
13527 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
13528
13529 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
13530 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
13531 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
13532 too surprising.</p>
13533
13534 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
13535 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
13536 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
13537 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
13538 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
13539 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
13540 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
13541 continue.</p>
13542
13543 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
13544 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
13545   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
13546   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
13547   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
13548   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
13549   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
13550   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
13551   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
13552   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
13553   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
13554   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
13555   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
13556   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
13557   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
13558   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
13559   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
13560   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
13561   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
13562   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
13563   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
13564   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
13565   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
13566   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
13567   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
13568   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
13569   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
13570   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
13571   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
13572   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
13573
13574 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
13575
13576 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
13577   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
13578   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
13579   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
13580   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
13581   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
13582   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
13583   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
13584   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
13585   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
13586   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
13587   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
13588   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
13589   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
13590   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
13591   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
13592   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
13593   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
13594   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
13595   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
13596   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
13597   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
13598   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
13599   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
13600   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
13601   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
13602   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
13603   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
13604   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
13605   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
13606   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
13607   zip</p>
13608
13609 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
13610
13611 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
13612   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
13613   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
13614   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
13615   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
13616   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
13617   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
13618   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
13619   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
13620   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
13621   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
13622   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
13623   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
13624   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
13625   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
13626   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
13627   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
13628   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
13629   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
13630   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
13631   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
13632   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
13633   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
13634   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
13635   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
13636   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
13637   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
13638   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
13639
13640 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
13641 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
13642   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
13643   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
13644   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
13645   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
13646   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
13647   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
13648   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
13649   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
13650   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
13651   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
13652   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
13653   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
13654   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
13655   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
13656   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
13657   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
13658   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
13659   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
13660   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
13661   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
13662   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
13663   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
13664   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
13665   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
13666   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
13667   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
13668   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
13669   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
13670   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
13671   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
13672   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
13673   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
13674   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
13675   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
13676   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
13677   xulrunner-1.9</p>
13678
13679
13680       </div>
13681       <div class="tags">
13682
13683
13684         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>.
13685
13686
13687       </div>
13688     </div>
13689     <div class="padding"></div>
13690
13691     <div class="entry">
13692       <div class="title">
13693         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
13694       </div>
13695       <div class="date">
13696         11th June 2010
13697       </div>
13698       <div class="body">
13699         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
13700 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
13701 have been discovered and reported in the process
13702 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
13703 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
13704 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
13705 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
13706 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
13707
13708 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
13709 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
13710 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
13711 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
13712 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
13713 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
13714
13715 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
13716 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
13717 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
13718 is created.  The bug report
13719 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
13720 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
13721 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
13722 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
13723 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
13724 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
13725 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
13726 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
13727 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
13728 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
13729 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
13730 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
13731 Debian Squeeze.</p>
13732
13733 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
13734 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
13735 trick:</p>
13736
13737 <blockquote><pre>
13738 #!/bin/sh
13739 set -ex
13740
13741 if [ "$1" ] ; then
13742     desktop=$1
13743 else
13744     desktop=gnome
13745 fi
13746
13747 from=lenny
13748 to=squeeze
13749
13750 exec &lt; /dev/null
13751 unset LANG
13752 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
13753 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
13754 fuser -mv .
13755 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
13756 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
13757 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
13758 #!/bin/sh
13759 exit 101
13760 EOF
13761 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
13762 exit_cleanup() {
13763     umount $tmpdir/proc
13764 }
13765 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
13766 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
13767 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
13768
13769 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
13770
13771 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
13772 # to return the correct answers.
13773 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
13774     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
13775
13776 # Include the desktop and laptop task
13777 for test in desktop laptop ; do
13778     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
13779 #!/bin/sh
13780 exit 2
13781 EOF
13782     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
13783 done
13784
13785 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
13786 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
13787 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
13788 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
13789
13790 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
13791 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
13792 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
13793 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
13794 fuser -mv
13795 </pre></blockquote>
13796
13797 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
13798 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
13799 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
13800 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
13801 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
13802 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
13803
13804 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
13805 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
13806 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
13807 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
13808 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
13809 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
13810 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
13811
13812 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
13813 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
13814 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
13815 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
13816 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
13817 packages.</p>
13818
13819       </div>
13820       <div class="tags">
13821
13822
13823         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>.
13824
13825
13826       </div>
13827     </div>
13828     <div class="padding"></div>
13829
13830     <div class="entry">
13831       <div class="title">
13832         <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>
13833       </div>
13834       <div class="date">
13835          6th June 2010
13836       </div>
13837       <div class="body">
13838         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
13839 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
13840 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
13841 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
13842 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
13843 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
13844 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
13845
13846 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
13847 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
13848 COLUMNS):</p>
13849
13850 <blockquote><pre>
13851 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
13852 previous=N
13853 PREVLEVEL=
13854 RUNLEVEL=
13855 runlevel=S
13856 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
13857 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
13858 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
13859 </pre></blockquote>
13860
13861 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
13862 script.</p>
13863
13864 <blockquote><pre>
13865 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
13866 previous=N
13867 PREVLEVEL=N
13868 RUNLEVEL=S
13869 runlevel=S
13870 </pre></blockquote>
13871
13872 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
13873 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
13874 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
13875
13876 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
13877 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
13878 choice.</p>
13879
13880       </div>
13881       <div class="tags">
13882
13883
13884         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>.
13885
13886
13887       </div>
13888     </div>
13889     <div class="padding"></div>
13890
13891     <div class="entry">
13892       <div class="title">
13893         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
13894       </div>
13895       <div class="date">
13896          6th June 2010
13897       </div>
13898       <div class="body">
13899         <p>Via the
13900 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
13901 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
13902 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
13903 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
13904 following the standards wars of today.</p>
13905
13906       </div>
13907       <div class="tags">
13908
13909
13910         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>.
13911
13912
13913       </div>
13914     </div>
13915     <div class="padding"></div>
13916
13917     <div class="entry">
13918       <div class="title">
13919         <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>
13920       </div>
13921       <div class="date">
13922          3rd June 2010
13923       </div>
13924       <div class="body">
13925         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
13926 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
13927 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
13928 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
13929 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
13930
13931 <blockquote><pre>
13932 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
13933   vendor                    count
13934   Dell Computer Corporation     1
13935     PowerEdge 1750              1
13936   IBM                           1
13937     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
13938   Intel                         2
13939   [no-dmi-info]                 3
13940 maintainer:~#
13941 </pre></blockquote>
13942
13943 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
13944 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
13945 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
13946 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
13947 option to list the individual machines.</p>
13948
13949 <p>A larger list is
13950 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
13951 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
13952 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
13953 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
13954 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
13955 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
13956 collector.</p>
13957
13958       </div>
13959       <div class="tags">
13960
13961
13962         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>.
13963
13964
13965       </div>
13966     </div>
13967     <div class="padding"></div>
13968
13969     <div class="entry">
13970       <div class="title">
13971         <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>
13972       </div>
13973       <div class="date">
13974          1st June 2010
13975       </div>
13976       <div class="body">
13977         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
13978 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
13979 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
13980 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
13981 wait.</p>
13982
13983 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
13984 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
13985 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
13986 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
13987 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
13988 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
13989
13990 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
13991 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
13992 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
13993 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
13994 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
13995 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
13996 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
13997 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
13998
13999 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
14000
14001       </div>
14002       <div class="tags">
14003
14004
14005         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>.
14006
14007
14008       </div>
14009     </div>
14010     <div class="padding"></div>
14011
14012     <div class="entry">
14013       <div class="title">
14014         <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>
14015       </div>
14016       <div class="date">
14017         27th May 2010
14018       </div>
14019       <div class="body">
14020         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
14021 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
14022 issues are known and should be solved:
14023
14024 <p><ul>
14025
14026 <li>The wicd package seen to
14027 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
14028 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
14029 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
14030 seem to be on the case.</li>
14031
14032 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
14033 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
14034 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
14035 maintainer is on the case.</li>
14036
14037 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
14038 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
14039 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
14040 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
14041 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
14042 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
14043 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
14044 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
14045
14046 </ul></p>
14047
14048 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
14049 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
14050 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
14051 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
14052
14053 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
14054 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
14055 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
14056 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
14057
14058 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
14059
14060       </div>
14061       <div class="tags">
14062
14063
14064         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>.
14065
14066
14067       </div>
14068     </div>
14069     <div class="padding"></div>
14070
14071     <div class="entry">
14072       <div class="title">
14073         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
14074       </div>
14075       <div class="date">
14076         22nd May 2010
14077       </div>
14078       <div class="body">
14079         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
14080 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
14081 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
14082 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
14083
14084 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
14085 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
14086 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
14087 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
14088 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
14089 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
14090 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
14091 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
14092 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
14093 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
14094 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
14095 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
14096 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
14097 going to work.</p>
14098
14099 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
14100 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
14101 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
14102 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
14103 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
14104 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
14105 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
14106 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
14107 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
14108 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
14109 Edu.</p>
14110
14111 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
14112 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
14113 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
14114 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
14115 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
14116 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
14117
14118 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
14119 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
14120
14121       </div>
14122       <div class="tags">
14123
14124
14125         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>.
14126
14127
14128       </div>
14129     </div>
14130     <div class="padding"></div>
14131
14132     <div class="entry">
14133       <div class="title">
14134         <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>
14135       </div>
14136       <div class="date">
14137         14th May 2010
14138       </div>
14139       <div class="body">
14140         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
14141 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
14142 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
14143 expected, if I am to believe the
14144 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
14145 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
14146 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
14147 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
14148 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
14149 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
14150 version.</p>
14151
14152 More information about
14153 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
14154 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
14155 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
14156 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
14157
14158 <blockquote><pre>
14159 CONCURRENCY=none
14160 </pre></blockquote>
14161
14162 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
14163 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
14164 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
14165 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
14166
14167       </div>
14168       <div class="tags">
14169
14170
14171         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>.
14172
14173
14174       </div>
14175     </div>
14176     <div class="padding"></div>
14177
14178     <div class="entry">
14179       <div class="title">
14180         <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>
14181       </div>
14182       <div class="date">
14183         14th May 2010
14184       </div>
14185       <div class="body">
14186         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
14187 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
14188 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
14189 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
14190 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
14191 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
14192 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
14193 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
14194
14195 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
14196 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
14197 this on the collector host:</p>
14198
14199 <blockquote><pre>
14200 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
14201 </pre></blockquote>
14202
14203 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
14204 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
14205
14206 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
14207 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
14208 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
14209 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
14210 written yet.</p>
14211
14212       </div>
14213       <div class="tags">
14214
14215
14216         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>.
14217
14218
14219       </div>
14220     </div>
14221     <div class="padding"></div>
14222
14223     <div class="entry">
14224       <div class="title">
14225         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
14226       </div>
14227       <div class="date">
14228         13th May 2010
14229       </div>
14230       <div class="body">
14231         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
14232 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
14233 has been
14234 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
14235
14236 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
14237 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
14238 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
14239 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
14240 based boot system.  Tollef is
14241 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
14242 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
14243 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
14244 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
14245 at the moment do not.</p>
14246
14247 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
14248 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
14249 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
14250 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
14251 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
14252 way forward.</p>
14253
14254 <p>In the mean time, based on the
14255 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
14256 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
14257 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
14258 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
14259 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
14260 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
14261 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
14262 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
14263
14264       </div>
14265       <div class="tags">
14266
14267
14268         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>.
14269
14270
14271       </div>
14272     </div>
14273     <div class="padding"></div>
14274
14275     <div class="entry">
14276       <div class="title">
14277         <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>
14278       </div>
14279       <div class="date">
14280          6th May 2010
14281       </div>
14282       <div class="body">
14283         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
14284 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
14285 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
14286 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
14287 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
14288 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
14289 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
14290
14291 <blockquote><pre>
14292 CONCURRENCY=makefile
14293 </pre></blockquote>
14294
14295 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
14296 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
14297 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
14298 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
14299 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
14300 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
14301 make this happen.</p>
14302
14303 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
14304 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
14305 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
14306 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
14307 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
14308
14309 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
14310 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
14311 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
14312 fix the remaining issues.</p>
14313
14314 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
14315 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
14316 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
14317 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
14318
14319       </div>
14320       <div class="tags">
14321
14322
14323         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>.
14324
14325
14326       </div>
14327     </div>
14328     <div class="padding"></div>
14329
14330     <div class="entry">
14331       <div class="title">
14332         <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>
14333       </div>
14334       <div class="date">
14335         27th July 2009
14336       </div>
14337       <div class="body">
14338         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
14339 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
14340 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
14341 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
14342 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
14343 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
14344 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
14345
14346 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
14347 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
14348 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
14349
14350       </div>
14351       <div class="tags">
14352
14353
14354         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>.
14355
14356
14357       </div>
14358     </div>
14359     <div class="padding"></div>
14360
14361     <div class="entry">
14362       <div class="title">
14363         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
14364       </div>
14365       <div class="date">
14366         22nd July 2009
14367       </div>
14368       <div class="body">
14369         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
14370 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
14371 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
14372 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
14373 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
14374 the package up to date.</p>
14375
14376 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
14377 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
14378 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
14379 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
14380 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
14381 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
14382 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
14383 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
14384 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
14385 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
14386 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
14387 working on the future release.</p>
14388
14389 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
14390 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
14391
14392       </div>
14393       <div class="tags">
14394
14395
14396         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>.
14397
14398
14399       </div>
14400     </div>
14401     <div class="padding"></div>
14402
14403     <div class="entry">
14404       <div class="title">
14405         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
14406       </div>
14407       <div class="date">
14408         24th June 2009
14409       </div>
14410       <div class="body">
14411         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
14412 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
14413 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
14414 funded
14415 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
14416 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
14417 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
14418 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
14419 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
14420 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
14421
14422 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
14423 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
14424 boot:</p>
14425
14426 <ul>
14427
14428 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
14429
14430 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
14431    clock is in UTC.</li>
14432
14433 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
14434    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
14435    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
14436
14437 </ul>
14438
14439 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
14440 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
14441 Villegas</a>.
14442
14443 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
14444 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
14445 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
14446 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
14447 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
14448 using this.</p>
14449
14450 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
14451 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
14452 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
14453 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
14454 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
14455 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
14456 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
14457
14458       </div>
14459       <div class="tags">
14460
14461
14462         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>.
14463
14464
14465       </div>
14466     </div>
14467     <div class="padding"></div>
14468
14469     <div class="entry">
14470       <div class="title">
14471         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html">BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand</a>
14472       </div>
14473       <div class="date">
14474         17th May 2009
14475       </div>
14476       <div class="body">
14477         <p>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
14478 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
14479 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
14480 ulike land rundt om i verden.  Resultatene er tendensiøse.  For noen
14481 dager siden kom
14482 <a href="http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf">siste
14483 rapport</a>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
14484 dagene.  Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
14485 <a href="http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror">BSA
14486 höftade Sverigesiffror</a>, oppsummeres slik:</p>
14487
14488 <blockquote>
14489 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att 25 procent av all mjukvara i
14490 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
14491 företag. "Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
14492 exakta", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
14493 </blockquote>
14494
14495 <p>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge?  To andre kommentarer er <a
14496 href="http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality">BSA
14497 piracy figures need a shot of reality</a> og <a
14498 href="http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3958/125/">Does The WIPO
14499 Copyright Treaty Work?</a></p>
14500
14501 <p>Fant lenkene via <a
14502 href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/17/1632242">oppslag
14503 på Slashdot</a>.</p>
14504
14505       </div>
14506       <div class="tags">
14507
14508
14509         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>.
14510
14511
14512       </div>
14513     </div>
14514     <div class="padding"></div>
14515
14516     <div class="entry">
14517       <div class="title">
14518         <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>
14519       </div>
14520       <div class="date">
14521          7th May 2009
14522       </div>
14523       <div class="body">
14524         <p>Kom over
14525 <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10216873-16.html">interessante
14526 tall</a> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet.  Fikk meg til
14527 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
14528 jobber til daglig.  En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har 490
14529 (61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og 196
14530 (25%) windowstjenere, samt 112 (14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere.  Med den
14531 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.</p>
14532
14533       </div>
14534       <div class="tags">
14535
14536
14537         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>.
14538
14539
14540       </div>
14541     </div>
14542     <div class="padding"></div>
14543
14544     <div class="entry">
14545       <div class="title">
14546         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html">Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis</a>
14547       </div>
14548       <div class="date">
14549          2nd May 2009
14550       </div>
14551       <div class="body">
14552         <p><a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece">Dagens
14553 IT melder</a> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
14554 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
14555 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer.  Det er ingen tvil om
14556 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
14557 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
14558 bærbare.  Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
14559 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
14560 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
14561 foreningsarbeide.  Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
14562 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
14563 av dem.  Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
14564 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
14565 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
14566 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker.  Jeg har LVM på toppen
14567 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
14568 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare.  Kostnaden når
14569 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
14570 betydelige.  En bør dog passe på passordet.  Hvis det går tapt, må
14571 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.</p>
14572
14573 <p>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
14574 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
14575 krypteringsnøklene.  Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
14576 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten.  Jeg tror oddsene for at
14577 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
14578 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
14579 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
14580 betydelige.</p>
14581
14582       </div>
14583       <div class="tags">
14584
14585
14586         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>.
14587
14588
14589       </div>
14590     </div>
14591     <div class="padding"></div>
14592
14593     <div class="entry">
14594       <div class="title">
14595         <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>
14596       </div>
14597       <div class="date">
14598          2nd May 2009
14599       </div>
14600       <div class="body">
14601         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
14602 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
14603 do not yet know them.</p>
14604
14605 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
14606 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
14607 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
14608 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
14609 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
14610 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
14611 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
14612 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
14613 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
14614 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
14615 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
14616
14617 <p>The second one is
14618 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
14619 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
14620 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
14621 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
14622 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
14623 and the company behind it is running
14624 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
14625 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
14626 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
14627 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
14628 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
14629 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
14630 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
14631 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
14632
14633 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
14634 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
14635 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
14636 surrounded by today.</p>
14637
14638       </div>
14639       <div class="tags">
14640
14641
14642         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>.
14643
14644
14645       </div>
14646     </div>
14647     <div class="padding"></div>
14648
14649     <div class="entry">
14650       <div class="title">
14651         <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>
14652       </div>
14653       <div class="date">
14654         28th April 2009
14655       </div>
14656       <div class="body">
14657         <p>Julien Blache
14658 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
14659 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
14660 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
14661 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
14662 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
14663 properties.</p>
14664
14665       </div>
14666       <div class="tags">
14667
14668
14669         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>.
14670
14671
14672       </div>
14673     </div>
14674     <div class="padding"></div>
14675
14676     <div class="entry">
14677       <div class="title">
14678         <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>
14679       </div>
14680       <div class="date">
14681         30th March 2009
14682       </div>
14683       <div class="body">
14684         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
14685 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
14686 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
14687 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
14688 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
14689 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
14690 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
14691 application.</p>
14692
14693 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
14694 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
14695 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
14696 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
14697 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
14698 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
14699 blocked from doing so.</p>
14700
14701 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
14702 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
14703 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
14704 requirements change.</p>
14705
14706 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
14707 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
14708 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
14709
14710       </div>
14711       <div class="tags">
14712
14713
14714         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>.
14715
14716
14717       </div>
14718     </div>
14719     <div class="padding"></div>
14720
14721     <div class="entry">
14722       <div class="title">
14723         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
14724       </div>
14725       <div class="date">
14726         29th March 2009
14727       </div>
14728       <div class="body">
14729         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
14730 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
14731 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
14732 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
14733 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
14734 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
14735 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
14736 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
14737 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
14738 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
14739 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
14740 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
14741 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
14742 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
14743 now. :)</p>
14744
14745       </div>
14746       <div class="tags">
14747
14748
14749         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>.
14750
14751
14752       </div>
14753     </div>
14754     <div class="padding"></div>
14755
14756     <div class="entry">
14757       <div class="title">
14758         <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>
14759       </div>
14760       <div class="date">
14761         29th March 2009
14762       </div>
14763       <div class="body">
14764         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
14765 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
14766 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
14767 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
14768 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
14769 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
14770
14771 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
14772 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
14773 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
14774 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
14775 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
14776 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
14777 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
14778 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
14779 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
14780 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
14781 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
14782 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
14783 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
14784
14785 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
14786 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
14787 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
14788 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
14789
14790 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
14791 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
14792
14793 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
14794 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
14795 new IETF work group?</p>
14796
14797       </div>
14798       <div class="tags">
14799
14800
14801         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>.
14802
14803
14804       </div>
14805     </div>
14806     <div class="padding"></div>
14807
14808     <div class="entry">
14809       <div class="title">
14810         <a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html">Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut</a>
14811       </div>
14812       <div class="date">
14813         15th February 2009
14814       </div>
14815       <div class="body">
14816         <p>Endelig er <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>
14817 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090214">Lenny</a> gitt ut.
14818 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
14819 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
14820 stabile utgaven av Debian.  Neste steg er nå å få
14821 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> /
14822 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> ferdig
14823 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
14824 slippes løs på skolene.  Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
14825 gjort dette mulig.  Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
14826 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
14827 <tt>insserv</tt>.</p>
14828
14829       </div>
14830       <div class="tags">
14831
14832
14833         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>.
14834
14835
14836       </div>
14837     </div>
14838     <div class="padding"></div>
14839
14840     <div class="entry">
14841       <div class="title">
14842         <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>
14843       </div>
14844       <div class="date">
14845          7th December 2008
14846       </div>
14847       <div class="body">
14848         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
14849 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
14850 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
14851 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
14852 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
14853 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
14854 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
14855 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
14856
14857 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
14858 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
14859 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
14860 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
14861 of these cards.</p>
14862
14863       </div>
14864       <div class="tags">
14865
14866
14867         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>.
14868
14869
14870       </div>
14871     </div>
14872     <div class="padding"></div>
14873
14874     <div class="entry">
14875       <div class="title">
14876         <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>
14877       </div>
14878       <div class="date">
14879         25th November 2008
14880       </div>
14881       <div class="body">
14882         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
14883 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
14884 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
14885 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
14886 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
14887 notes are available on
14888 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
14889 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
14890 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
14891 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
14892 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
14893 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
14894 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
14895 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
14896 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
14897
14898 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
14899 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
14900
14901       </div>
14902       <div class="tags">
14903
14904
14905         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>.
14906
14907
14908       </div>
14909     </div>
14910     <div class="padding"></div>
14911
14912     <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>
14913     <div id="sidebar">
14914
14915
14916
14917 <h2>Archive</h2>
14918 <ul>
14919
14920 <li>2022
14921 <ul>
14922
14923 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/02/">February (1)</a></li>
14924
14925 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/03/">March (3)</a></li>
14926
14927 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/04/">April (2)</a></li>
14928
14929 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/06/">June (2)</a></li>
14930
14931 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/07/">July (1)</a></li>
14932
14933 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/09/">September (1)</a></li>
14934
14935 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2022/10/">October (1)</a></li>
14936
14937 </ul></li>
14938
14939 <li>2021
14940 <ul>
14941
14942 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/01/">January (2)</a></li>
14943
14944 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/02/">February (1)</a></li>
14945
14946 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/05/">May (1)</a></li>
14947
14948 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/06/">June (1)</a></li>
14949
14950 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/07/">July (3)</a></li>
14951
14952 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/08/">August (1)</a></li>
14953
14954 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/09/">September (1)</a></li>
14955
14956 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/10/">October (1)</a></li>
14957
14958 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2021/12/">December (1)</a></li>
14959
14960 </ul></li>
14961
14962 <li>2020
14963 <ul>
14964
14965 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/02/">February (2)</a></li>
14966
14967 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/03/">March (2)</a></li>
14968
14969 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/04/">April (2)</a></li>
14970
14971 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/05/">May (3)</a></li>
14972
14973 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/06/">June (2)</a></li>
14974
14975 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/07/">July (1)</a></li>
14976
14977 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/09/">September (1)</a></li>
14978
14979 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/10/">October (1)</a></li>
14980
14981 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2020/11/">November (1)</a></li>
14982
14983 </ul></li>
14984
14985 <li>2019
14986 <ul>
14987
14988 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/01/">January (4)</a></li>
14989
14990 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/02/">February (3)</a></li>
14991
14992 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/03/">March (3)</a></li>
14993
14994 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/05/">May (2)</a></li>
14995
14996 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/06/">June (5)</a></li>
14997
14998 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/07/">July (2)</a></li>
14999
15000 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/08/">August (1)</a></li>
15001
15002 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15003
15004 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/11/">November (1)</a></li>
15005
15006 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2019/12/">December (4)</a></li>
15007
15008 </ul></li>
15009
15010 <li>2018
15011 <ul>
15012
15013 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/01/">January (1)</a></li>
15014
15015 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/02/">February (5)</a></li>
15016
15017 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/03/">March (5)</a></li>
15018
15019 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/04/">April (3)</a></li>
15020
15021 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15022
15023 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/07/">July (5)</a></li>
15024
15025 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/08/">August (3)</a></li>
15026
15027 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/09/">September (3)</a></li>
15028
15029 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/10/">October (5)</a></li>
15030
15031 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/11/">November (2)</a></li>
15032
15033 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2018/12/">December (4)</a></li>
15034
15035 </ul></li>
15036
15037 <li>2017
15038 <ul>
15039
15040 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/01/">January (4)</a></li>
15041
15042 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/02/">February (3)</a></li>
15043
15044 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/03/">March (5)</a></li>
15045
15046 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/04/">April (2)</a></li>
15047
15048 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/06/">June (5)</a></li>
15049
15050 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/07/">July (1)</a></li>
15051
15052 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/08/">August (1)</a></li>
15053
15054 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/09/">September (3)</a></li>
15055
15056 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/10/">October (5)</a></li>
15057
15058 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15059
15060 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/12/">December (4)</a></li>
15061
15062 </ul></li>
15063
15064 <li>2016
15065 <ul>
15066
15067 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (3)</a></li>
15068
15069 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/02/">February (2)</a></li>
15070
15071 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15072
15073 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/04/">April (8)</a></li>
15074
15075 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/05/">May (8)</a></li>
15076
15077 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15078
15079 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/07/">July (2)</a></li>
15080
15081 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/08/">August (5)</a></li>
15082
15083 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/09/">September (2)</a></li>
15084
15085 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/10/">October (3)</a></li>
15086
15087 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/11/">November (8)</a></li>
15088
15089 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/12/">December (5)</a></li>
15090
15091 </ul></li>
15092
15093 <li>2015
15094 <ul>
15095
15096 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
15097
15098 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
15099
15100 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
15101
15102 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
15103
15104 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
15105
15106 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
15107
15108 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
15109
15110 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
15111
15112 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
15113
15114 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
15115
15116 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
15117
15118 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (3)</a></li>
15119
15120 </ul></li>
15121
15122 <li>2014
15123 <ul>
15124
15125 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
15126
15127 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
15128
15129 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
15130
15131 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
15132
15133 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
15134
15135 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15136
15137 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
15138
15139 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
15140
15141 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
15142
15143 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
15144
15145 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15146
15147 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
15148
15149 </ul></li>
15150
15151 <li>2013
15152 <ul>
15153
15154 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
15155
15156 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
15157
15158 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
15159
15160 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
15161
15162 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
15163
15164 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
15165
15166 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
15167
15168 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
15169
15170 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
15171
15172 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
15173
15174 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
15175
15176 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
15177
15178 </ul></li>
15179
15180 <li>2012
15181 <ul>
15182
15183 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
15184
15185 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
15186
15187 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
15188
15189 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
15190
15191 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
15192
15193 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
15194
15195 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
15196
15197 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
15198
15199 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
15200
15201 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
15202
15203 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
15204
15205 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
15206
15207 </ul></li>
15208
15209 <li>2011
15210 <ul>
15211
15212 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
15213
15214 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
15215
15216 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
15217
15218 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
15219
15220 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
15221
15222 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
15223
15224 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
15225
15226 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
15227
15228 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
15229
15230 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
15231
15232 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15233
15234 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
15235
15236 </ul></li>
15237
15238 <li>2010
15239 <ul>
15240
15241 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
15242
15243 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
15244
15245 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
15246
15247 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
15248
15249 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
15250
15251 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
15252
15253 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
15254
15255 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
15256
15257 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
15258
15259 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
15260
15261 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
15262
15263 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
15264
15265 </ul></li>
15266
15267 <li>2009
15268 <ul>
15269
15270 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
15271
15272 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
15273
15274 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
15275
15276 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
15277
15278 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
15279
15280 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
15281
15282 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
15283
15284 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
15285
15286 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
15287
15288 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
15289
15290 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
15291
15292 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
15293
15294 </ul></li>
15295
15296 <li>2008
15297 <ul>
15298
15299 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
15300
15301 <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
15302
15303 </ul></li>
15304
15305 </ul>
15306
15307
15308
15309 <h2>Tags</h2>
15310 <ul>
15311
15312  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (19)</a></li>
15313
15314  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
15315
15316  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
15317
15318  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
15319
15320  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/betalkontant">betalkontant (9)</a></li>
15321
15322  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (12)</a></li>
15323
15324  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (17)</a></li>
15325
15326  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
15327
15328  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
15329
15330  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (183)</a></li>
15331
15332  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (159)</a></li>
15333
15334  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian-handbook">debian-handbook (9)</a></li>
15335
15336  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (11)</a></li>
15337
15338  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (18)</a></li>
15339
15340  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (30)</a></li>
15341
15342  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
15343
15344  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (439)</a></li>
15345
15346  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
15347
15348  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (14)</a></li>
15349
15350  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (34)</a></li>
15351
15352  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
15353
15354  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (20)</a></li>
15355
15356  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
15357
15358  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (43)</a></li>
15359
15360  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (16)</a></li>
15361
15362  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (23)</a></li>
15363
15364  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kodi">kodi (4)</a></li>
15365
15366  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
15367
15368  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lego">lego (5)</a></li>
15369
15370  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
15371
15372  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
15373
15374  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
15375
15376  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/madewithcc">madewithcc (3)</a></li>
15377
15378  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
15379
15380  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (43)</a></li>
15381
15382  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (13)</a></li>
15383
15384  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/noark5">noark5 (23)</a></li>
15385
15386  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (320)</a></li>
15387
15388  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (198)</a></li>
15389
15390  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (40)</a></li>
15391
15392  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
15393
15394  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (75)</a></li>
15395
15396  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (114)</a></li>
15397
15398  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (2)</a></li>
15399
15400  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
15401
15402  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
15403
15404  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
15405
15406  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (16)</a></li>
15407
15408  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
15409
15410  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (7)</a></li>
15411
15412  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
15413
15414  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (59)</a></li>
15415
15416  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
15417
15418  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (5)</a></li>
15419
15420  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (73)</a></li>
15421
15422  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (7)</a></li>
15423
15424  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (14)</a></li>
15425
15426  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (63)</a></li>
15427
15428  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (5)</a></li>
15429
15430  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
15431
15432  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (9)</a></li>
15433
15434  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/verkidetfri">verkidetfri (20)</a></li>
15435
15436  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (77)</a></li>
15437
15438  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
15439
15440  <li><a href="https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (42)</a></li>
15441
15442 </ul>
15443
15444
15445     </div>
15446     <p style="text-align: right">
15447  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
15448 </p>
15449
15450   </body>
15451 </html>