1 <?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"utf-8"?>
2 <rss version='
2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/
1.0/'
>
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries tagged debian
</title>
5 <description>Entries tagged debian
</description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
10 <title>How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Sat,
22 Nov
2014 01:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
15 sysvinit as its boot system by default. But how can one keep using
16 sysvinit in Jessie? It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
18 <a href=
"http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/
201410/
2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html
">Erich
19 Schubert
</a
> and
20 <a href=
"http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/
2014/still_universal/
">Simon
23 <p
>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
24 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
25 <tt
>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit
</tt
> with this content before
26 you upgrade:
</p
>
28 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
32 </pre
></blockquote
><p
>
34 <p
>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
35 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
36 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
37 systemd as a default boot system. The end result should be that the
38 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.
</p
>
40 <p
>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
41 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
42 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
43 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot. Either by
44 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
45 preseed file used. First, the kernel command line argument:
47 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
48 preseed/late_command=
"in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
"
49 </pre
></blockquote
><p
>
51 <p
>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:
</p
>
53 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
54 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
55 </pre
></blockquote
><p
>
57 <p
>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
58 the sysvinit-core package.
</p
>
60 <p
>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
61 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
62 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
63 devices show up during boot. But on the other hand, the new default
64 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
65 Jessie is released.
</p
>
70 <title>A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4
</title>
71 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html
</link>
72 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html
</guid>
73 <pubDate>Mon,
10 Nov
2014 13:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
74 <description><p
>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
75 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
76 democracy. But this right is under serious attack these days.
</p
>
78 <p
>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
79 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
80 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
81 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor. Such SMTP option would be
82 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
83 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
84 to the people peeking on the wire. I
85 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/
2014-October/
006493.html
">proposed
86 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October
</a
> and got a
87 lot of useful feedback and suggestions. It also became obvious to me
88 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
89 documented by Johannes Berg as early as
2006, and both
90 <a href=
"https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP
">the
91 Mailpile
</a
> and
<a href=
"http://dee.su/cables
">the Cables
</a
> systems
92 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.
</p
>
94 <p
>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
95 providing the SMTP protocol on port
25, and use email addresses
96 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion. With such addresses
97 the connections to port
25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
98 go to the correct SMTP server. To do this, one need to configure the
99 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
100 emails for this .onion domain. To learn more about Exim configuration
101 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
102 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
103 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian. Getting it to work
104 were fairly easy, and
105 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp
">the
106 source code for the Debian package
</a
> is available from github. I
107 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
108 useful approach.
</p
>
110 <p
>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
111 mail system installed (or run
<tt
>apt-get purge exim4-config
</tt
> to
112 get rid of exim4). Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
113 above, build the deb and install it on the machine. Next, run
114 <tt
>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service
</tt
> and follow
115 the instructions to get the service up and running. Restart tor and
116 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
119 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
120 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
121 --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
122 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
124 <p
>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor. Replace the email
125 address with your own address to test your server. :)
</p
>
127 <p
>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
128 easier and more automatic. Especially the tor setup need more work.
129 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
130 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
131 architecture independent. It would probably also make the code easier
132 to review. The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
133 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd. It would be better if
134 no daemon and no socket is needed. I suspect it is possible to get
135 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
136 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
139 <p
>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
140 <tt
>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
</tt
> mail address, deliverable over
146 <title>listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software
</title>
147 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html
</link>
148 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html
</guid>
149 <pubDate>Wed,
22 Oct
2014 20:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
150 <description><p
>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
151 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
152 operate. First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
153 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
154 and various options for each email address. This take a while for
155 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
156 job as a list moderator. But there is a quick alternative,
157 <a href=
"http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin
">the
158 listadmin program
</a
>. It allow you to check lists for new messages
159 to moderate in a fraction of a second. Here is a test run on two
160 lists I recently took over:
</p
>
162 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
163 % time listadmin xiph
164 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
165 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
171 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
173 <p
>In
1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
174 there are no message in the moderation queue. Every morning I
175 currently moderate
68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
176 minutes. When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
177 ago, there were
400 emails waiting in the moderator queue. It took me
178 less than
15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
181 <p
>If you install
182 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin
">the listadmin
183 package
</a
> from Debian and create a file
<tt
>~/.listadmin.ini
</tt
>
184 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:
</p
>
186 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
187 username username@example.org
190 discard_if_reason
"Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list.
"
193 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
194 mailman-list@lists.example.com
197 other-list@otherserver.example.org
198 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
200 <p
>There are other options to set as well. Check the manual page to
201 learn the details.
</p
>
203 <p
>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
204 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
205 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
206 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:
</p
>
208 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
209 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 listadmin
210 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
212 <p
>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
213 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
214 initial screen dump (the xiph argument). Using an argument, only
215 lists matching the argument string will be processed. This make it
216 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
219 <p
>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of
68
220 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
221 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
222 time I could spend elsewhere over the years. It truly is nice free
225 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
226 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
227 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
229 <p
>Update
2014-
10-
27: Added missing
'username
' statement in
230 configuration example. Also, I
've been told that the
231 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 setting do not work for everyone. Not
237 <title>Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation
</title>
238 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html
</link>
239 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html
</guid>
240 <pubDate>Fri,
17 Oct
2014 14:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
241 <description><p
>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
242 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
243 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
244 Normally something more is needed. But thanks to
245 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html
">my isenkram
246 package
</a
> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
247 to do this using simple preseeding.
</p
>
249 <p
>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
250 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
251 the kernel modules for the hardware). (It can also install user space
252 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
253 of this story.)
</p
>
255 <p
>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
256 values are needed. First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
257 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
258 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system. This is done by
259 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
260 isenkram-cli package. The package name is next passed to debootstrap
261 for installation. With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
262 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
263 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
264 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.
</p
>
266 <p
>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
267 most firmware unfortunately is non-free. This is done by preseeding
268 the apt-mirror-setup step. This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
269 hardware it is the only option in Debian.
</p
>
271 <p
>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
272 firmware installed automatically by the installer:
</p
>
274 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
275 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
276 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
277 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
279 <p
>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
280 both firmware and user space packages when using this method. It also
281 do not work well, so use version
0.15 or later. Installing both
282 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
283 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
284 and one for user space programs. The firmware task is enabled by
285 default, while the one for user space programs is not. This split is
286 implemented in the package currently in unstable.
</p
>
288 <p
>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
289 this recipe work for you. :)
</p
>
291 <p
>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work. First and
292 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
293 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/. So the
294 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find. First there
295 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):
</p
>
297 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
298 Task: isenkram-packages
300 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
301 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
303 Test-new-install: show show
305 Packages: for-current-hardware
307 Task: isenkram-firmware
309 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
310 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
311 packages are proposed.
312 Test-new-install: mark show
314 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
315 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
317 <p
>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
318 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
319 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/. The scripts use other scripts to get a
320 list of packages to install. The for-current-hardware-firmware script
321 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
323 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
328 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
329 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
331 <p
>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
332 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)
</p
>
334 <p
>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
335 installed, run
<tt
>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
336 --new-install
</tt
> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
339 <p
><a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/
">Debian Edu
</a
> will be
340 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
341 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.
</p
>
346 <title>Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo
</title>
347 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html
</link>
348 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html
</guid>
349 <pubDate>Sat,
4 Oct
2014 15:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
350 <description><p
>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen. Above the
351 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
352 with Linux kernel
3.2.0-
23 (ie probably version
12.04 LTS) was stuck
353 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:
</p
>
355 <p align=
"center
"><img width=
"70%
" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2014-
10-
04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg
"></p
>
357 <p
>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
358 about this hidden Linux installation. It is interesting what
359 <a href=
"http://revealingerrors.com/
">errors can reveal
</a
>.
</p
>
364 <title>New lsdvd release version
0.17 is ready
</title>
365 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html
</link>
366 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html
</guid>
367 <pubDate>Sat,
4 Oct
2014 08:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
368 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/
">lsdvd project
</a
>
369 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
370 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
371 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
374 <p
>I just wrapped up
375 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/
32896061/
">a
376 new lsdvd release
</a
>, available in git or from
377 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/
">the
378 download page
</a
>. This is the changelog dated
2014-
10-
03 for version
383 <li
>Ignore
'phantom
' audio, subtitle tracks
</li
>
384 <li
>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
385 non-existant, to work around additional copy protection
</li
>
386 <li
>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles
</li
>
387 <li
>Fix pallete display of first entry
</li
>
388 <li
>Fix include orders
</li
>
389 <li
>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway
</li
>
390 <li
>Fix the chapter count
</li
>
391 <li
>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
392 the palette size is the same.
</li
>
393 <li
>Fix array printing.
</li
>
394 <li
>Correct subsecond calculations.
</li
>
395 <li
>Add sector information to the output format.
</li
>
396 <li
>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
397 with more GCC compiler warnings.
</li
>
401 <p
>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
402 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
403 project the last nine years. Please check it out. :)
</p
>
408 <title>How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer
</title>
409 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html
</link>
410 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html
</guid>
411 <pubDate>Fri,
26 Sep
2014 12:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
412 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
413 project
</a
> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
414 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
415 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
416 boot of both clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
417 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
418 to mention here). We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
419 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
420 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
422 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie
">current
423 status
</a
> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
424 work left. Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
425 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway. Here is a
426 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.
</p
>
428 <p
>First, download the test ISO via
429 <a href=
"ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-
1.iso
">ftp
</a
>,
430 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-
1.iso
">http
</a
>
432 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-
1.iso).
433 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
434 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
435 install with some tweaking.
</p
>
437 <p
>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
438 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run
</p
>
440 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
441 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
442 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
444 <p
>and add
'exit
0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
445 optimization. Return to the installation, select the profile you want
446 and continue. Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
447 due to a known bug in eatmydata.
</p
>
449 <p
>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
450 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be. All my
451 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
454 <p
>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
455 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
456 education-desktop-XXX metapackage. XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
457 or mate. If you want several desktop options, install more than one
458 metapackage. Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
459 graphical login screen. This workaround should no longer be needed
460 once the education-tasks package version
1.801 enter testing in two
463 <p
>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
464 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
465 update the debian-cd git repository. The eatmydata, grub and desktop
466 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
467 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again. Well the
468 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled. The proper fix
469 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
470 provided in bug
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/
702711">#
702711</a
>.
471 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.
</p
>
473 <p
>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
474 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
475 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.
</p
>
480 <title>Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool
</title>
481 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html
</link>
482 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html
</guid>
483 <pubDate>Thu,
25 Sep
2014 11:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
484 <description><p
>I use the
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/
">lsdvd tool
</a
>
485 to handle my fairly large DVD collection. It is a nice command line
486 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
487 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format. But lsdvd have not seen
488 any new development since
2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
489 its use with some DVDs. Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
490 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
491 project, without any reply. But I use it regularly and would like to
492 get
<a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd
">an updated version
493 into Debian
</a
>. So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
494 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
495 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
496 over. And yesterday, I became project admin.
</p
>
498 <p
>I
've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
499 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
500 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
501 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
502 I
've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
503 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too. If you got
504 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
505 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/
">the git source
</a
> and join
506 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/
">the project mailing
507 list
</a
>. :)
</p
>
512 <title>Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert
</title>
513 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html
</link>
514 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html
</guid>
515 <pubDate>Tue,
16 Sep
2014 14:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
516 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"https://www.debian.org/
">Debian
</a
> installer could be
517 a lot quicker. When we install more than
2000 packages in
518 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Skolelinux / Debian Edu
</a
> using
519 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
520 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
521 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/
613428">bug #
613428</a
> about too
522 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
523 responsible for unpacking the binary packages. Other parts (like code
524 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
525 installation. All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
526 me. If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
527 to salvage the half installed system. So the failure sync-ing is
528 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
529 relevant while the installer is running.
</p
>
531 <p
>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
532 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
533 change the code in several packages. The idea is not new, but I have
534 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before. It
535 depend on the small and clever package
536 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata
">eatmydata
</a
>, which
537 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
538 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
539 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly. Instead of
540 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
541 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
542 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
543 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
544 "eatmydata
&nbsp;$program
&nbsp;$@
", to get the same effect.
545 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
546 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.
</p
>
548 <p
>The effect was stunning. In my first test it reduced the running
549 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from
64 to less than
44
550 minutes (
20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
551 Latitude D505 machine. I am not quite sure what the optimised time
552 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
553 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
554 installation. As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
555 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
556 installation. I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
557 and got these results. The time measured is the time stamp in
558 /var/log/syslog between the
"pkgsel: starting tasksel
" and the
559 "pkgsel: finishing up
" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
560 yourself. In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
561 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
564 <p
><table
>
567 <th
>Machine/setup
</th
>
568 <th
>Original tasksel
</th
>
569 <th
>Optimised tasksel
</th
>
570 <th
>Reduction
</th
>
574 <td
>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE
</td
>
575 <td
>64 min (
07:
46-
08:
50)
</td
>
576 <td
><44 min (
11:
27-
12:
11)
</td
>
577 <td
>>20 min
18%
</td
>
581 <td
>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE
</td
>
582 <td
>57 min (
08:
48-
09:
45)
</td
>
583 <td
>34 min (
07:
43-
08:
17)
</td
>
584 <td
>23 min
40%
</td
>
588 <td
>Latitude D505 Minimal
</td
>
589 <td
>22 min (
10:
37-
10:
59)
</td
>
590 <td
>11 min (
11:
16-
11:
27)
</td
>
591 <td
>11 min
50%
</td
>
595 <td
>Thinkpad X200 Minimal
</td
>
596 <td
>6 min (
08:
19-
08:
25)
</td
>
597 <td
>4 min (
08:
04-
08:
08)
</td
>
598 <td
>2 min
33%
</td
>
602 <td
>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE
</td
>
603 <td
>19 min (
09:
21-
09:
40)
</td
>
604 <td
>15 min (
10:
25-
10:
40)
</td
>
605 <td
>4 min
21%
</td
>
608 </table
></p
>
610 <p
>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
611 time is spent downloading packages. The connection to the Internet
612 was
100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
613 significant factor in the measurement. Download typically took a few
614 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
617 <p
>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
618 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
">Debian
619 Installer
</a
>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
620 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
621 installation. I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
622 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
623 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
624 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO. The
625 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
626 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i. If the code is
627 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
628 for the entire installation.
</p
>
630 <p
>I
've implemented this in the
631 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install
">debian-edu-install
</a
>
632 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
633 Debian Edu installation. If you want to test this yourself, you can
634 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb). One shell script
635 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:
</p
>
637 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
640 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
642 logger -t my-pkgsel
"info: $*
"
645 logger -t my-pkgsel
"error: $*
"
648 apt-install eatmydata || true
649 if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
650 for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
652 # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
653 if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
654 info
"diverting $file using eatmydata
"
655 printf
"#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \
"\$@\
"\n
" \
656 > /target$file.edu
657 chmod
755 /target$file.edu
658 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
659 --rename --quiet --add $file
660 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
662 error
"unable to divert $file, as it is missing.
"
666 error
"unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage
"
671 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
673 <p
>To clean up, another shell script should go into
674 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
676 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
678 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
680 logger -t my-finish-install
"error: $@
"
682 remove_install_override() {
683 for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
685 if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
687 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
688 --rename --quiet --remove $file
691 error
"Missing divert for $file.
"
694 sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
697 remove_install_override
698 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
700 <p
>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
701 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
702 finish-install.d scripts.
</p
>
704 <p
>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
705 Debian installer too? I suspect it should, but am not sure the
706 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough. It also
707 depend on the side effects of the change. I
'm not aware of any, but I
708 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
709 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
710 fsync() having effect? Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
711 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
714 <p
>Update
2014-
09-
24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
715 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
716 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/
702711">bug #
702711</a
>. An updated
717 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.
</p
>
719 <p
>Update
2014-
10-
17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
720 the optimization work again. And I have discovered that the
721 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
722 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package. See
723 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.
</p
>
725 <p
>Update
2014-
11-
11: Unfortunately, a new
726 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
765738">bug #
765738</a
> in eatmydata only
727 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
728 optimization again. If
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
768893">unblock
729 request
768893</a
> is accepted, it should be working again.
</p
>
734 <title>Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net
</title>
735 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html
</link>
736 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html
</guid>
737 <pubDate>Wed,
10 Sep
2014 13:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
738 <description><p
>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
739 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/
">Norwegian Unix User Group
</a
> about
740 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/
20140909-sks-keyservers/
">the
741 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net
</a
>, and was very happy to
742 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
743 use when looking for peoples public key. So far I have used
744 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
745 were misbehaving, but those days are ended. The servers I have used
746 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable. I hope
747 those problems are gone now.
</p
>
749 <p
>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
750 <a href=
"https://sks-keyservers.net/
">sks-keyservers.net
</a
> service
751 there is a pool of more than
100 keyservers which are checked every
752 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date. It must be
753 better than what I have used so far. :)
</p
>
755 <p
>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
756 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
757 not seem to be used in Debian. Perhaps it should?
</p
>
759 <p
>Anyway, I
've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
762 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
763 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
764 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
766 <p
>With GnuPG version
2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
767 entries in DNS. Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
768 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
769 keyserver automatically should their need it:
</p
>
771 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
772 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
773 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record
0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
775 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
778 <a href=
"http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/
">the
779 HKP lookup protocol
</a
> supported finding signature paths, I would be
780 very happy. It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
781 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
782 another key. Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
783 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
784 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
785 This is as far as I can tell not possible today. Perhaps something
786 for a future version of the protocol?
</p
>
791 <title>From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook
</title>
792 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html
</link>
793 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html
</guid>
794 <pubDate>Tue,
17 Jun
2014 11:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
795 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
796 project
</a
> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
797 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
798 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation. This text is about how the
799 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.
</p
>
801 <p
>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
802 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
803 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
804 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
805 in sync. And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
806 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
807 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
808 edit the documentation using a web browser. We also want it to be
809 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
810 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
811 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
814 <p
>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
815 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/
">Debian
816 wiki
</a
>, as several wiki pages written in English. It consist of one
817 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
818 for each chapter, and finally one
"collection page
" gluing all the
819 chapters together into one large web page (aka
820 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne
">the
821 AllInOne page
</a
>). The AllInOne page is the one used for further
822 processing and translations. Thanks to the fact that the
823 <a href=
"http://moinmo.in/
">MoinMoin
</a
> installation on
824 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
825 <a href=
"http://www.docbook.org/
">the Docbook format
</a
>, we can fetch
826 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
827 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
828 manual. This process also download images and transform image
829 references to use the locally downloaded images. The generated
830 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
831 using the
<tt
>documentation/scripts/get_manual
</tt
> program, and the
832 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
833 a handfull of images. The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
834 and epub versions of the English manual. This is the basic step of
835 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
836 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
837 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.
</p
>
839 <p
>But English documentation is not enough for us. We want translated
840 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
841 track the English original. For this we use the
842 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html
">poxml
</a
> package,
843 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
844 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
845 translation tools used by those translating free software. The pot
846 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
847 files), which the translations update with the native language
848 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
849 original. The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
850 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
851 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
852 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml). This translated (or partly
853 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
854 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
855 of the documentation.
</p
>
857 <p
>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files. We
859 <a href=
"http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/
">lokalize
</a
>,
860 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
861 <a href=
"http://pootle.translatehouse.org/
">Poodle
</a
> or
862 <a href=
"https://www.transifex.com/
">Transifex
</a
>. All we care about
863 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository. Updated
864 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
865 <a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc
">bug reports
866 against the debian-edu-doc package
</a
>.
</p
>
868 <p
>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
869 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
870 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
871 this regard). For this we transform the original PNG images to the
872 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
873 translated images by storing translated versions in
874 images/$LANGUAGECODE/. I am a bit unsure about the details here. The
875 package maintainers know more.
</p
>
877 <p
>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
878 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/
">the content
879 of the documentation packages on the web
</a
>. See for example the
880 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf
">Italian
881 PDF version
</a
> or the
882 <a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html
">German
883 HTML version
</a
>. We do not yet build the epub version by default,
884 but perhaps it will be done in the future.
</p
>
886 <p
>To learn more, check out
887 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html
">the
888 debian-edu-doc package
</a
>,
889 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/
">the
890 manual on the wiki
</a
> and
891 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations
">the
892 translation instructions
</a
> in the manual.
</p
>
897 <title>Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram
0.7)
</title>
898 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html
</link>
899 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html
</guid>
900 <pubDate>Wed,
23 Apr
2014 14:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
901 <description><p
>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
902 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
903 So I implemented one, using
904 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram
">my Isenkram
905 package
</a
>. To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
906 run tasksel as user root. You should be presented with a new option,
907 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
". When you
908 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
909 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.
<p
>
911 <p
>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
912 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
913 packages to install. The first part is in
914 <tt
>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc
</tt
> and look like
917 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
920 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
921 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
923 Test-new-install: mark show
925 Packages: for-current-hardware
926 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
928 <p
>The second part is in
929 <tt
>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware
</tt
> and look like
932 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
937 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
939 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
941 <p
>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
942 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
943 have installed on our machines. I
've not been able to find a way to
944 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
945 before doing the installation. So if you are curious or careful,
946 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.
</p
>
948 <p
>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
949 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
950 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
951 database (using the Modaliases header). The APT package database
952 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
953 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
719837">#
719837</a
> and
954 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
730704">#
730704</a
>). The cause is in
955 the python-apt code (bug
956 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
745487">#
745487</a
>), but using a
957 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
958 reduce the memory leak from ~
30 MiB per hardware detection down to
959 around
2 MiB per hardware detection. It should make the desktop
960 daemon a lot more useful. The fix is in version
0.7 uploaded to
961 unstable today.
</p
>
963 <p
>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
964 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
965 use the AppStream data source for this. A proposal for getting proper
966 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
967 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-
11">DEP-
11</a
>, and
968 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects
.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream
.2FDEP-
11_for_the_Debian_Archive
">GSoC
969 project
</a
> will take place this summer to improve the situation. I
970 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
971 start using the information when it is ready.
</p
>
973 <p
>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
974 add a
"Xb-Modaliases
" header to your control file like I did in
975 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile
">the pymissile
976 package
</a
> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
978 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/
">all my
979 blog posts tagged isenkram
</a
> for details on the notation. I expect
980 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
981 moment I got no better place to store it.
</p
>
986 <title>FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid
</title>
987 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html
</link>
988 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html
</guid>
989 <pubDate>Tue,
15 Apr
2014 22:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
990 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">Freedombox
991 project
</a
> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
992 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
993 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
994 encrypted and away from prying eyes. It is still going strong, and
995 today a major mile stone was reached.
</p
>
997 <p
>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
998 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable. It was
999 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
1000 during build and on the first boot. Now all one need to get going is
1001 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
1002 Debian. And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
1003 build everything directly from Debian. :)
</p
>
1005 <p
>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
1006 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup
">freedombox-setup
</a
>,
1007 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth
">plinth
</a
>,
1008 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite
">pagekite
</a
>,
1009 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor
">tor
</a
>,
1010 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy
">privoxy
</a
>,
1011 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud
">owncloud
</a
> and
1012 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq
">dnsmasq
</a
>. There
1013 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup. User
1014 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki. Please
1015 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie
">check out
1016 the manual
</a
> and help us improve it.
</p
>
1018 <p
>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
1019 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
1020 become root:
</p
>
1022 <p
><pre
>
1023 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1024 mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1026 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1028 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1029 </pre
></p
>
1031 <p
>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1032 devices. See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
1033 details on the build. If you do not want all three images, trim the
1034 make line. Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
1035 virtualbox specific. It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
1036 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment. You might need
1037 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
1038 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.
</p
>
1040 <p
>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1041 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1042 the preseed values:
</p
>
1044 <p
><pre
>
1045 url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
</a
>
1046 </pre
></p
>
1048 <p
>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
1049 it still work.
</p
>
1051 <p
>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
1052 systemd as the boot system. It will become the default for Linux in
1053 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox. I did
1054 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
1055 during boot when using systemd. I suspect there are other problems
1056 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
1057 be run from the plinth web interface.
</p
>
1059 <p
>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1060 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1061 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:
6667/%
23freedombox
">IRC (#freedombox on
1062 irc.debian.org)
</a
> and
1063 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
">the
1064 mailing list
</a
> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p
>
1069 <title>S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software
</title>
1070 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html
</link>
1071 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html
</guid>
1072 <pubDate>Wed,
9 Apr
2014 11:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1073 <description><p
>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
1074 solution for use at home. My requirements are simple, it must be
1075 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
1076 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
1077 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
1078 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
1079 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
1080 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space. On top
1081 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
1082 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage. But
1083 I never found time to implement such system. But the last few weeks I
1084 have looked at a system called
1085 <a href=
"https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/
">S3QL
</a
>, a locally
1086 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.
</p
>
1088 <p
>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
1089 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
1090 Google Drive or OpenStack API. There are heaps of such storage
1091 providers. S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
1092 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server. S3QL
1093 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
1094 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
1095 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
1096 while the content is stored in the cloud as well. This allow me to
1097 have a backup that should survive fire. The file system can not be
1098 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
1099 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
1100 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.
</p
>
1102 <p
>It is simple to use. I
'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
1103 package is included already. So to get started, run
<tt
>apt-get
1104 install s3ql
</tt
>. Next, pick a storage provider. I ended up picking
1105 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
1106 <a href=
"https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/
44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy
">how
1107 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service
</a
>, because I trust the laws
1108 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
1109 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
1110 in Iceland. Another nice recipe is available from the article
1111 <a href=
"http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage
">S3QL
1112 Filesystem for HPC Storage
</a
> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
1113 Admin magazine. When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
1114 the API key needed to connect to the storage API. With Greencloud,
1115 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
1118 <p
>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
1119 system. First, create a new bucket in the cloud. This bucket is the
1120 file system storage area. I picked a bucket name reflecting the
1121 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
1122 I
'll refer to it as
<tt
>bucket-name
</tt
> below. In addition, one need
1123 the API login and password, and a locally created password. Store it
1124 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
1126 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
1128 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
1129 backend-login: API-login
1130 backend-password: API-password
1131 fs-passphrase: local-password
1132 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
1134 <p
>I create my local passphrase using
<tt
>pwget
50</tt
> or similar,
1135 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
1136 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
1137 details and password to create it:
</p
>
1139 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
1140 # mkdir -m
700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
1141 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1142 --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
1143 Enter backend login:
1144 Enter backend password:
1145 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user
's guide, especially
1146 the
'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data
' section.
1147 Enter encryption password:
1148 Confirm encryption password:
1149 Generating random encryption key...
1150 Creating metadata tables...
1160 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1161 Wrote
0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
1162 #
</pre
></blockquote
></p
>
1164 <p
>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
1166 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
1167 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1168 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name /s3ql
1169 Using
4 upload threads.
1170 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
1180 Mounting filesystem...
1182 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
1183 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
1.0T
0 1.0T
0% /s3ql
1185 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
1187 <p
>The file system is now ready for use. I use rsync to store my
1188 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
1189 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
1190 running rsync. To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
1191 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
1192 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
1194 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
1197 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
1199 <p
>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
1200 correct any problems detected. This can be used if the local server
1201 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the
"already
1202 mounted
" flag. This is what it look like when processing a working
1203 file system:
</p
>
1205 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
1206 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name
1207 Using cached metadata.
1208 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
1209 Checking DB integrity...
1210 Creating temporary extra indices...
1211 Checking lost+found...
1212 Checking cached objects...
1213 Checking names (refcounts)...
1214 Checking contents (names)...
1215 Checking contents (inodes)...
1216 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
1217 Checking objects (reference counts)...
1218 Checking objects (backend)...
1219 ..processed
5000 objects so far..
1220 ..processed
10000 objects so far..
1221 ..processed
15000 objects so far..
1222 Checking objects (sizes)...
1223 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
1224 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
1225 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
1226 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
1227 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
1228 Checking inodes (sizes)...
1229 Checking extended attributes (names)...
1230 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
1231 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
1232 Checking directory reachability...
1233 Checking unix conventions...
1234 Checking referential integrity...
1235 Dropping temporary indices...
1236 Backing up old metadata...
1246 Compressing and uploading metadata...
1247 Wrote
0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
1249 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
1251 <p
>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
1252 quick, about the same speed as local file access. Uploading large
1253 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
1254 house. Uploading
685 MiB with a
100 MiB cache gave me
305 kiB/s,
1255 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
1256 Debian installation ISO gave me
610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
1257 Both were measured using
<tt
>dd
</tt
>. So for me, the bottleneck is my
1258 network, not the file system code. I do not know what a good cache
1259 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
1260 working set.
</p
>
1262 <p
>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
1263 time. If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
1266 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
1267 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
1268 --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:
443/bucket-name /s3ql
1269 Using
8 upload threads.
1270 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
1272 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
1274 <p
>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
1275 metadata is uploaded once every
24 hour by default. To ensure the
1276 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
1277 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
1280 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
1281 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
1282 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
1284 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
1286 <p
>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
1287 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
1288 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
1291 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
1293 Directory entries:
9141
1296 Total data size:
22049.38 MB
1297 After de-duplication:
21955.46 MB (
99.57% of total)
1298 After compression:
21877.28 MB (
99.22% of total,
99.64% of de-duplicated)
1299 Database size:
2.39 MB (uncompressed)
1300 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
1302 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
1304 <p
>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
1305 storage. I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
1306 <a href=
"https://www.greenqloud.com/
">Greenqloud
</a
>,
1307 <a href=
"http://drive.google.com/
">Google Drive
</a
>,
1308 <a href=
"http://aws.amazon.com/s3/
">Amazon S3 web serivces
</a
>,
1309 <a href=
"http://www.rackspace.com/
">Rackspace
</a
> and
1310 <a href=
"http://crowncloud.net/
">Crowncloud
</A
>. The latter even
1311 accept payment in Bitcoin. Pick one that suit your need. Some of
1312 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
1313 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
1316 <p
>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
1317 and posters discussing the S3QL file system. There are several, which
1318 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
1319 science community and increased my confidence in using it. One nice
1321 "<a href=
"http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf
">An
1322 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
1323 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach
</a
>" by Hsing-Bung
1324 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
1325 and Pamela Smith. Please have a look.
</p
>
1327 <p
>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
1328 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
1329 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
1330 it come to locking and umask handling etc). Running
1331 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html
">my
1332 test code to check file system semantics
</a
>, I was happy to discover that
1333 no error was found. So the file system can be used for home
1334 directories, if one chooses to do so.
</p
>
1336 <p
>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
1337 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
1338 <a href=
"http://www.tarsnap.com/
">Tarsnap service
</a
>, which also
1339 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client. It have
1340 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
1341 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
1342 only read from it.
</p
>
1344 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1345 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1346 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
1351 <title>Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine
</title>
1352 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html
</link>
1353 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html
</guid>
1354 <pubDate>Fri,
14 Mar
2014 11:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
1355 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">Freedombox
1356 project
</a
> is working on providing the software and hardware for
1357 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
1358 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
1359 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes. It has been
1360 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
1361 release (
0.2).
</p
>
1363 <p
>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
1364 new version will provide
"hard drive
" / SD card / USB stick images for
1365 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
1366 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
1367 file. The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
1368 where most of the needed packages used are already present. Only one,
1369 the freedombox-setup package, is missing. To try to build your own
1370 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
1372 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap
">vmdebootstrap
</a
>
1373 with a user with sudo access to become root:
1376 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
1378 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
1379 mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
1381 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
1384 <p
>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
1385 devices. See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
1386 want all three images, trim the make line. But note that thanks to
<a
1387 href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/
741407">a race condition in
1388 vmdebootstrap
</a
>, the build might fail without the patch to the
1389 kpartx call.
</p
>
1391 <p
>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
1392 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
1393 the preseed values:
</p
>
1396 url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat
</a
>
1399 <p
>But note that due to
<a href=
"https://bugs.debian.org/
740673">a
1400 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie
</a
>, the installer will
1401 currently hang while setting up APT sources. Killing the
1402 '<tt
>apt-cdrom ident
</tt
>' process when it hang a few times during the
1403 installation will get the installation going. This affect all
1404 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.
</p
>
1406 <p
>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
1407 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
1408 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:
6667/%
23freedombox
">IRC (#freedombox on
1409 irc.debian.org)
</a
> and
1410 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
">the
1411 mailing list
</a
> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p
>
1416 <title>New home and release
1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)
</title>
1417 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html
</link>
1418 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html
</guid>
1419 <pubDate>Sat,
22 Feb
2014 21:
45:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
1420 <description><p
>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
1421 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
1422 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Skolelinux
</a
>. I called the project
1423 ng-utils, and it has served me well. I placed the project under the
1424 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/
">Hungry Programmer
</a
> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
1425 repository. But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
1426 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
1427 proper home since then.
</p
>
1429 <p
>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
1430 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
1431 a proper source control system. I applied for a project on
1432 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/
">Alioth
</a
>, but did not have time
1433 to follow up on it. Until today. :)
</p
>
1435 <p
>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
1436 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
1437 history of the project. I published all release tarballs and imported
1438 them into the git repository. As the project is really stable and not
1439 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
1440 release and call it
1.0. Visit the new project home on
1441 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/
">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/
</a
>
1442 if you want to check it out. The new version is also uploaded into
1443 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html
">Debian Unstable
</a
>.
</p
>
1448 <title>Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd
</title>
1449 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html
</link>
1450 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html
</guid>
1451 <pubDate>Mon,
3 Feb
2014 13:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
1452 <description><p
>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
1453 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
1454 boot system instead of their old one. This follow up on the
1455 <a href=
"https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html
">great
1456 Google Summer of Code work
</a
> done last summer by Justus Winter to
1457 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux. To get started,
1458 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
1459 <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
>,
1460 and started it using virt-manager.
</p
>
1462 <p
>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
1463 password) was to get the network operational. I followed
1464 <a href=
"https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install
">the
1465 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page
</a
> and ran these
1466 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
1467 kvm internal DHCP server:
</p
>
1469 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
1470 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
1471 kill $(ps -ef|awk
'/[p]finet/ { print $
2}
')
1472 kill $(ps -ef|awk
'/[d]evnode/ { print $
2}
')
1474 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
1476 <p
>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
1477 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
1478 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.
</p
>
1480 <p
>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
1481 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
1482 set. Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
1483 compression from working. Remember to turn that off on the client
1486 <p
>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
1489 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
1490 cat
> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list
&lt;
&lt;EOF
1491 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
1494 apt-get dist-upgrade
1495 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
1496 sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
1497 update-alternatives --config runsystem
1498 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
1500 <p
>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
1501 <tt
>reboot-hurd
</tt
> instead of just
<tt
>reboot
</tt
>, as there is not
1502 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
1503 'reboot
' command. After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
1504 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
1505 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
1506 start is no longer needed. But for some strange reason, there are no
1507 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
1510 <p
>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
1511 fail some times. No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
1512 figure it out. At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
1513 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem. A way to reduce
1514 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
1515 adding this repository to the machine:
</p
>
1517 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
1518 cat
> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list
&lt;
&lt;EOF
1519 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
1521 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
1523 <p
>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
1524 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
1525 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
1526 BTS. This is the completely list of
"unofficial
" packages installed:
</p
>
1528 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
1529 # aptitude search
'?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))
'
1530 i emacs - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
1531 i gdb - GNU Debugger
1532 i hurd-recommended - Miscellaneous translators
1533 i isc-dhcp-client - ISC DHCP client
1534 i isc-dhcp-common - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
1535 i libc-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
1536 i libc-dev-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
1537 i libc0.3 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
1538 i A libc0.3-dbg - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
1539 i libc0.3-dev - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
1540 i multiarch-support - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
1541 i A x11-common - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
1542 i xorg - X.Org X Window System
1543 i A xserver-xorg - X.Org X server
1544 i A xserver-xorg-input-all - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
1546 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
1548 <p
>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
1549 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
1550 the porters instructions to fix it. This time I was interested in the
1551 command line stuff.
<p
>
1556 <title>New chrpath release
0.16</title>
1557 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html
</link>
1558 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html
</guid>
1559 <pubDate>Tue,
14 Jan
2014 11:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
1560 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.coverity.com/
">Coverity
</a
> is a nice tool to
1561 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
1562 analysis. It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
1563 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
1564 the source. The company behind it provide
1565 <a href=
"https://scan.coverity.com/
">check of free software projects as
1566 a community service
</a
>, and many hundred free software projects are
1567 already checked. A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
1568 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
1569 <a href=
"http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/
">gnash
</a
> and
1570 <a href=
"http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/
">ipmitool
</a
>
1571 projects I am involved with was already registered. But these are
1572 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
1573 check, and decided to
<a href=
"http://scan.coverity.com/projects/
1179">request
1574 checking of the chrpath project
</a
>. It was
1575 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects. Six of
1576 these were real, mostly resource
"leak
" when the program detected an
1577 error. Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
1578 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
1579 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
1580 the future end up in a library. Having fixed all defects and added
1581 <a href=
"https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel
">a
1582 mailing list for the chrpath developers
</a
>, I decided it was time to
1583 publish a new release. These are the release notes:
</p
>
1585 <p
>New in
0.16 released
2014-
01-
14:
</p
>
1589 <li
>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.
</li
>
1590 <li
>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.
</li
>
1591 <li
>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.
</li
>
1596 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=
31052">download the
1597 new version
0.16 from alioth
</a
>. Please let us know via the Alioth
1598 project if something is wrong with the new release. The test suite
1599 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1600 include a test suite check.
</p
>
1605 <title>New chrpath release
0.15</title>
1606 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html
</link>
1607 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html
</guid>
1608 <pubDate>Sun,
24 Nov
2013 09:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
1609 <description><p
>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
1610 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
1611 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
1612 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
1613 compiled ELF programs. The update was triggered by the persistence of
1614 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
1615 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc
64-bit Little Endian) he
1616 is working on. I checked the
1617 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath
">Debian
</a
>,
1618 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath
">Ubuntu
</a
> and
1619 <a href=
"https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath
">Fedora
</a
>
1620 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
1621 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
1622 These are the release notes:
</p
>
1624 <p
>New in
0.15 released
2013-
11-
24:
</p
>
1628 <li
>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
1629 with newer architectures. Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
1632 <li
>Updated README with current URLs.
</li
>
1634 <li
>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
1635 Matthias Klose.
</li
>
1637 <li
>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
1638 Petr Machata found in Fedora.
</li
>
1640 <li
>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
1641 .dynamic is a NULL terminated string. Based on patch found in
1642 Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.
</li
>
1647 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=
31052">download the
1648 new version
0.15 from alioth
</a
>. Please let us know via the Alioth
1649 project if something is wrong with the new release. The test suite
1650 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
1651 include a testsuite check.
</p
>
1656 <title>Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog
</title>
1657 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html
</link>
1658 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html
</guid>
1659 <pubDate>Sat,
2 Nov
2013 22:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
1660 <description><p
>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
1661 <a href=
"http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=
147">to get rid of huge
1662 init.d scripts
</a
>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
1663 init.d scripts at all. Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
1664 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:
</p
>
1666 <p
><pre
>
1667 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
1670 # Required-Start: $remote_fs $time
1671 # Required-Stop: umountnfs $time
1672 # X-Stop-After: sendsigs
1673 # Default-Start:
2 3 4 5
1674 # Default-Stop:
0 1 6
1675 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
1676 # Description: Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
1677 # It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
1678 # used as a drop-in replacement.
1680 DESC=
"enhanced syslogd
"
1681 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
1682 </pre
></p
>
1684 <p
>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
1685 script was
137 lines, and the above is just
15 lines, most of it meta
1686 info/comments.
</p
>
1688 <p
>How to do this, you ask? Well, one create a new script
1689 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
1691 <p
><pre
>
1694 # Define LSB log_* functions.
1695 # Depend on lsb-base (
>=
3.2-
14) to ensure that this file is present
1696 # and status_of_proc is working.
1697 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
1700 # Function that starts the daemon/service
1706 #
0 if daemon has been started
1707 #
1 if daemon was already running
1708 #
2 if daemon could not be started
1709 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test
> /dev/null \
1711 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
1714 # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
1715 # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
1716 # on this one. As a last resort, sleep for some time.
1720 # Function that stops the daemon/service
1725 #
0 if daemon has been stopped
1726 #
1 if daemon was already stopped
1727 #
2 if daemon could not be stopped
1728 # other if a failure occurred
1729 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/
30/KILL/
5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1730 RETVAL=
"$?
"
1731 [
"$RETVAL
" =
2 ]
&& return
2
1732 # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
1733 # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
1734 # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
1735 # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
1736 # needed by services started subsequently. A last resort is to
1737 # sleep for some time.
1738 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=
0/
30/KILL/
5 --exec $DAEMON
1739 [
"$?
" =
2 ]
&& return
2
1740 # Many daemons don
't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
1742 return
"$RETVAL
"
1746 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
1750 # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
1751 # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
1752 # then implement that here.
1754 start-stop-daemon --stop --signal
1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1759 scriptbasename=
"$(basename $
1)
"
1760 echo
"SN: $scriptbasename
"
1761 if [
"$scriptbasename
" !=
"init-d-library
" ] ; then
1762 script=
"$
1"
1769 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
1770 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
1772 # Exit if the package is not installed
1773 #[ -x
"$DAEMON
" ] || exit
0
1775 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
1776 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ]
&& . /etc/default/$NAME
1778 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
1781 case
"$
1" in
1783 [
"$VERBOSE
" != no ]
&& log_daemon_msg
"Starting $DESC
" "$NAME
"
1785 case
"$?
" in
1786 0|
1) [
"$VERBOSE
" != no ]
&& log_end_msg
0 ;;
1787 2) [
"$VERBOSE
" != no ]
&& log_end_msg
1 ;;
1791 [
"$VERBOSE
" != no ]
&& log_daemon_msg
"Stopping $DESC
" "$NAME
"
1793 case
"$?
" in
1794 0|
1) [
"$VERBOSE
" != no ]
&& log_end_msg
0 ;;
1795 2) [
"$VERBOSE
" != no ]
&& log_end_msg
1 ;;
1799 status_of_proc
"$DAEMON
" "$NAME
" && exit
0 || exit $?
1801 #reload|force-reload)
1803 # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
1804 # and leave
'force-reload
' as an alias for
'restart
'.
1806 #log_daemon_msg
"Reloading $DESC
" "$NAME
"
1810 restart|force-reload)
1812 # If the
"reload
" option is implemented then remove the
1813 #
'force-reload
' alias
1815 log_daemon_msg
"Restarting $DESC
" "$NAME
"
1817 case
"$?
" in
1820 case
"$?
" in
1822 1) log_end_msg
1 ;; # Old process is still running
1823 *) log_end_msg
1 ;; # Failed to start
1833 echo
"Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}
" >&2
1839 </pre
></p
>
1841 <p
>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
1842 lot. I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
1843 work out of the box, but you get the idea. I did not try very hard to
1844 optimize it nor make it more robust either.
</p
>
1846 <p
>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
1847 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
1848 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
1849 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially. The boot
1850 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.
</p
>
1855 <title>Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian
</title>
1856 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html
</link>
1857 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html
</guid>
1858 <pubDate>Fri,
1 Nov
2013 11:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
1859 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.spice-space.org/
">The SPICE protocol
</a
> for
1860 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
1861 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
1862 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
1863 missing in Debian. The
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
668284">request
1864 for a package
</a
> was from
2012-
04-
10 with no progress since
1865 2013-
04-
01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
1866 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
1867 repository to get a package I could use. I would very much like
1868 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
1869 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
1870 NEW. I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.
</p
>
1872 <p
>The source is now available from
1873 <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
>
1878 <title>Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images
</title>
1879 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html
</link>
1880 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html
</guid>
1881 <pubDate>Sun,
27 Oct
2013 17:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
1882 <description><p
>The
1883 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html
">vmdebootstrap
</a
>
1884 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images. It
1885 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
1886 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
1887 stick. Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
1888 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi
">Raspberry Pi
</a
>, as part
1889 of a plan to simplify the build system for
1890 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">the FreedomBox
1891 project
</a
>. The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
1892 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
1893 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
1894 Raspberry Pi.
</p
>
1896 <p
>Armed with the knowledge on how to build
"foreign
" (aka non-native
1897 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
1898 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
1899 Debian laptop. I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
1900 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
1901 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html
">Debian
1902 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi
</a
>. First, the
1903 <tt
>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler
</tt
> option tell vmdebootstrap to
1904 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
1905 generated chroot before running the second stage. This allow
1906 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host. Next I added
1907 two new options
<tt
>--bootsize size
</tt
> and
<tt
>--boottype
1908 fstype
</tt
> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
1909 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
1910 partition for the /boot/ stuff. I also added a
<tt
>--variant
1911 variant
</tt
> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
1912 Debian base system packages installed. Finally, I added an option
1913 <tt
>--no-extlinux
</tt
> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
1914 as a boot loader. It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
1915 most other non-x86 architectures. The changes were accepted by the
1916 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
1918 <a href=
"http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/
">the
1919 upstream project page
</a
>.
</p
>
1921 <p
>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
1922 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
1923 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
1926 <p
><pre
>
1928 set -e # Exit on first error
1929 rootdir=
"$
1"
1930 cd
"$rootdir
"
1931 cat
&lt;
&lt;EOF
> etc/apt/sources.list
1932 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
1934 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi. This
1935 # install a kernel somewhere too.
1936 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
1937 -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1938 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1939 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
1940 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
1941 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
1942 </pre
></p
>
1944 <p
>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
1945 to build the image:
</p
>
1948 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
1951 --distribution jessie \
1952 --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
1961 --root-password raspberry \
1962 --hostname raspberrypi \
1963 --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
1964 --customize `pwd`/customize \
1966 --package git-core \
1967 --package binutils \
1968 --package ca-certificates \
1971 </pre
></p
>
1973 <p
>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
1974 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
1975 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
1976 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant. I really wish there was a way to
1977 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
1978 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
1979 using a non-free binary blob.
</p
>
1981 <p
>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
1982 probably a few others installed. I have not checked the complete
1983 build dependency list.
</p
>
1985 <p
>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
1986 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
1987 optimized for that use. So the images created will be a bit slower
1988 than
<a href=
"http://www.raspbian.org/
">Raspbian
</a
> based images.
</p
>
1993 <title>Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway
</title>
1994 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html
</link>
1995 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html
</guid>
1996 <pubDate>Tue,
15 Oct
2013 21:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
1997 <description><p
>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
1998 wider attention. I recommend signing and donating to each one of
2001 <p
>Via
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/
2013/
18/
">Debian
2002 Project News for
2013-
10-
14</a
> I came across the Outreach Program for
2003 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
2004 more women involved in free software. One debian sponsor has offered
2005 to match
<a href=
"http://debian.ch/opw2013
">any donation done to Debian
2006 earmarked
</a
> for this initiative. I donated a few minutes ago, and
2007 hope you will to. :)
</p
>
2009 <p
>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
2010 create
<a href=
"https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos
">video
2011 documentaries about the excessive spying
</a
> on every Internet user that
2012 take place these days, and their need to fund the work. I
've already
2013 donated. Are you next?
</p
>
2015 <p
>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
2016 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
2017 statement under the heading
2018 <a href=
"http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/
">Bloggers United for Open
2019 Access
</a
> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
2020 Norwegian government. So far
499 signatures. I hope you will sign it
2026 <title>Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning
</title>
2027 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html
</link>
2028 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html
</guid>
2029 <pubDate>Fri,
27 Sep
2013 14:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2030 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/
">Freedombox
2031 project
</a
> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
2032 vision, ideas and solution several places. Here is a little
2033 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.
</p
>
2037 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA
">FreedomBox -
2038 2,
5 minute marketing film
</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
2040 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE
">Eben Moglen
2041 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news
2011</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
2043 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g
">Eben Moglen -
2044 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
2045 Web
2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting
2010</a
>
2046 (Youtube)
</li
>
2048 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE
">Fosdem
2011
2049 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox
</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
2051 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
9bDDUyJSQ9s
">Presentation of
2052 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz
2011</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
2054 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s
"> Freedombox -
2055 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
2056 York City in
2012</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
2058 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck
">Introduction
2059 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in
2012</a
>
2060 (Youtube)
</li
>
2062 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ
">Freedom, Out
2063 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat,
2012</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
2065 <li
><a href=
"https://archive.fosdem.org/
2013/schedule/event/freedombox/
">Freedombox
2066 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem
2013</a
> (FOSDEM)
</li
>
2068 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg
">What is the
2069 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
2070 2013</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
2074 <p
>A larger list is available from
2075 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations
">the
2076 Freedombox Wiki
</a
>.
</p
>
2078 <p
>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
2079 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
2080 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
2081 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
2082 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
2083 pending in NEW. The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
2084 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload. Join
2085 us on
<a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:
6667/%
23freedombox
">IRC
2086 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)
</a
> and
2087 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
">the
2088 mailing list
</a
> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p
>
2093 <title>Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi
</title>
2094 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html
</link>
2095 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html
</guid>
2096 <pubDate>Tue,
10 Sep
2013 14:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2097 <description><p
>I was introduced to the
2098 <a href=
"http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/
">Freedombox project
</a
>
2099 in
2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
2100 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
2101 within the legal protection of their own homes. The idea is to give
2102 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
2103 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture. Instead of
2104 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
2105 control over their own basic infrastructure.
</p
>
2107 <p
>I
've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
2108 taken priority. But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
2109 and privilege exercised by the
"western
" intelligence gathering
2110 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
2111 actually started working on the project a while back.
</p
>
2113 <p
>The
<a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/
">initial
2114 Debian initiative
</a
> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
2115 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
2116 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
2117 communication. The initial deployment platform have been the
2118 <a href=
"http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx
">Dreamplug
</a
>,
2119 which is a piece of hardware I do not own. So to be able to test what
2120 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2121 it on some hardware I do have access to. I have rewritten the
2122 <a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker
">freedom-maker
</a
>
2123 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2124 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2125 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2126 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2127 missing in Debian).
</p
>
2129 <p
>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2131 (
<a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup
">freedombox-setup
</a
>),
2132 and a administrative web interface
2133 (
<a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth
">plinth
</a
> + exmachina +
2134 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2135 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy
">privoxy
</a
>
2136 (freedombox-privoxy). There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2137 client (
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat
">jwchat
</a
>)
2138 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2139 (
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd
">ejabberd
</a
>). The
2140 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2141 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc. Not much of
2142 this is really working yet, see
2143 <a href=
"https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO
">the
2144 project TODO
</a
> for links to GIT repositories. Most of the code is
2145 on github at the moment. The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2146 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2147 users. I
've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2148 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2149 with lots of half baked features.
</p
>
2151 <p
>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2152 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2155 <p
><strong
>Debian Wheezy amd64
</strong
></p
>
2159 <li
>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.
</li
>
2160 <li
>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.
</li
>
2161 <li
><p
>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2162 to the Debian installer:
<p
>
2163 <pre
>url=
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat
">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat
</a
></pre
></li
>
2165 <li
>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2166 install on.
</li
>
2168 <li
>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2169 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.
</li
>
2173 <p
><strong
>Raspberry Pi Raspbian
</strong
></p
>
2177 <li
>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.
</li
>
2178 <li
>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.
</li
>
2179 <li
><p
>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:
</p
>
2181 deb
<a href=
"http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/
">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox
</a
> wheezy main
2182 </pre
></li
>
2183 <li
><p
>Run this as root:
</p
>
2185 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2188 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2189 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2190 </pre
></li
>
2191 <li
>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.
</li
>
2195 <p
>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2196 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2197 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2198 in my APT repository. But do not let this stop you. It is only a
2199 short
"<tt
>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy
</tt
>" away. :)
</p
>
2201 <p
>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2202 192.168.1.0/
24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2203 off the DHCP server by running
"<tt
>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2204 disable
</tt
>" as root.
</p
>
2206 <p
>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2207 problems. We gather on the IRC channel
2208 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:
6667/%
23freedombox
">#freedombox
</a
> on
2209 irc.debian.org and the
2210 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
">project
2211 mailing list
</a
>.
</p
>
2213 <p
>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2214 <tt
>http://your-host-name:
8001/
</tt
> to see the state of the plint
2215 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2216 get past it), and next visit
<tt
>http://your-host-name:
8001/help/
</tt
>
2217 to look at the rest of plinth. The default user is
'admin
' and the
2218 default password is
'secret
'.
</p
>
2223 <title>Intel
180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware
</title>
2224 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html
</link>
2225 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html
</guid>
2226 <pubDate>Sun,
18 Aug
2013 14:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2227 <description><p
>Earlier, I reported about
2228 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html
">my
2229 problems using an Intel SSD
520 Series
180 GB disk
</a
>. Friday I was
2230 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away. And as
2231 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2232 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2233 currently on the disk.
</p
>
2235 <p
>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2236 <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
>
2237 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2238 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2239 disks. I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2240 booted the ISO from a USB stick. The disk was recognized, but the
2241 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2242 to insert any Intel firmware. So no change, and the disk is still
2243 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2244 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware. No idea how likely
2245 that is. Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness. I
2246 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2247 the broken disks.
</p
>
2252 <title>How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken
180 GB SSD disk
</title>
2253 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html
</link>
2254 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html
</guid>
2255 <pubDate>Wed,
17 Jul
2013 23:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2256 <description><p
>Today I switched to
2257 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html
">my
2258 new laptop
</a
>. I
've previously written about the problems I had with
2259 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2260 <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
2261 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware
</a
> that did not handle
2262 sustained writes. My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2263 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2264 identical
180 GB disks they decided to send me a
256 GB Samsung SSD
2265 disk instead to fix it once and for all. The Samsung disk survived
2266 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2267 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2268 decided to trust it with my data. I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2269 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2270 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2271 station from now on.
</p
>
2273 <p
>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2274 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2275 performance and increase life time of the disk. The Linux kernel and
2276 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2277 environment. To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2278 package
<tt
>ssd-setup
</tt
> to handle this tuning. The
2279 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git
">source
2280 for the ssd-setup package
</a
> is available from collab-maint, and it
2281 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2282 package. If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2283 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2284 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.
</p
>
2286 <p
>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2287 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD. It is adjusted to my use case,
2288 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2289 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2290 top of this again. See the README file in the package source for the
2291 references I used to pick the settings. At the moment these
2292 parameters are tuned:
</p
>
2296 <li
>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2297 (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)
</li
>
2299 <li
>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2300 this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2301 0 to
1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.
</li
>
2303 <li
>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2306 <li
>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding
'discard
' to
2307 /etc/fstab.
</li
>
2309 <li
>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.
</li
>
2311 <li
>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2312 cron.daily).
</li
>
2314 <li
>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to
1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2315 to
50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.
</li
>
2319 <p
>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2320 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2321 little gain. My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2322 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2323 computer. I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2324 from getting the data on the disk (see
2325 <a href=
"http://xkcd.com/
538/
">XKCD #
538</a
> for an explanation why).
2326 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2327 right thing to do.
</p
>
2329 <p
>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2330 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2331 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.
</p
>
2333 <p
>I also considered using the
'discard
' file system option for ext3
2334 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2335 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2336 instead of during my work.
</p
>
2338 <p
>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2339 this is already done by Debian Edu.
</p
>
2341 <p
>I have not yet started on the user space tuning. I expect
2342 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2343 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.
</p
>
2345 <p
>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2348 <p
>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2349 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2350 disk. It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2351 the Lenovo firmware. But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2352 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2353 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2359 <title>Intel SSD
520 Series
180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes
</title>
2360 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html
</link>
2361 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html
</guid>
2362 <pubDate>Wed,
10 Jul
2013 13:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2363 <description><p
>A few days ago, I wrote about
2364 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html
">the
2365 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk
</a
>, which
2366 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2367 sustained write. My supplier is in contact with
2368 <a href=
"http://www.lenovo.com/
">Lenovo
</a
>, and they wanted to send a
2369 replacement disk to try to fix the problem. They decided to send an
2370 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.
</p
>
2372 <p
>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2373 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it. The new disk have the
2374 same firmware version as the original. This time my hope raised
2375 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2376 die after
4-
7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2377 going past
10%,
20%,
40% and even past
50%. But around
60%, the disk
2378 died again and I was back on square one. I still do not have a new
2379 laptop with a disk I can trust. I can not live with a disk that might
2380 lock up when I download a new
2381 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
> ISO or
2382 other large files. I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2383 the next proposal from Lenovo.
</p
>
2385 <p
>The original disk is marked Intel SSD
520 Series
180 GB,
2386 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
2387 LF1i,
29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-
300, LBA
351,
651,
888, LI P/N:
0C38722,
2388 Pb-free
2LI, LC P/N:
16-
200366, WWN:
55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
2389 SSDSC2BW180A3L
2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD
180G
5V
1A, ASM P/N
0C38732, FRU
2390 P/N
45N8295, P0C38732.
</p
>
2392 <p
>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD
520 Series
180 GB,
2393 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-
302, FW:
2394 LF1i,
22APR2013, PBA: G39779-
300, LBA
351,
651,
888, LI P/N:
0C38722,
2395 Pb-free
2LI, LC P/N:
16-
200366, WWN:
55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
2396 SSDSC2BW180A3L
2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD
180G
5V
1A, ASM P/N
0C38732, FRU
2397 P/N
45N8295, P0C38732.
</p
>
2399 <p
>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
2400 SA, date and WNPP values. Mentioning all the details here in case
2401 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
2402 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
2408 <title>July
13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo
</title>
2409 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html
</link>
2410 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html
</guid>
2411 <pubDate>Tue,
9 Jul
2013 10:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2412 <description><p
>The upcoming Saturday,
2013-
07-
13, we are organising a combined
2413 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
2414 party in Oslo. It is organised by
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/
">the
2415 member assosiation NUUG
</a
> and
2416 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2417 project
</a
> together with
<a href=
"http://bitraf.no/
">the hack space
2418 Bitraf
</a
>.
</p
>
2420 <p
>It starts
10:
00 and continue until late evening. Everyone is
2421 welcome, and there is no fee to participate. There is on the other
2422 hand limited space, and only room for
30 people. Please put your name
2423 on
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/
2013/
07/
13/no/Oslo
">the event
2424 wiki page
</a
> if you plan to join us.
</p
>
2429 <title>The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?
</title>
2430 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html
</link>
2431 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html
</guid>
2432 <pubDate>Fri,
5 Jul
2013 08:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2433 <description><p
>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
2434 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html
">replacement
2435 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41
</a
>. Unfortunately I did not have much
2436 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
2437 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived. I
2439 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230
">Thinkpad X230
</a
>
2440 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
2441 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly. But my
2442 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful. More
2443 on that below.
</p
>
2445 <p
>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2446 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2447 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
2448 feature at
<a href=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/
">Prisjakt
</a
>, which
2449 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2450 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
2451 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
2452 disks from my search parameters. I also asked around among friends to
2453 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.
</p
>
2455 <p
>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
2456 X41. I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
2457 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
2458 hand a lot more to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly
2459 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
2460 I will get used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
2461 needed a new laptop now. :)
</p
>
2463 <p
>Turning off the touch pad was simple. All it took was a quick
2464 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.
</p
>
2466 <p
>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop. The
180 GB SSD disk
2467 lock up during load. And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
2468 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
2469 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
2470 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
2471 default in Ubuntu). And the bug with is already known. It was
2472 reported to Debian as
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
691427">BTS
2473 report #
691427 2012-
10-
25</a
> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
2474 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD). It is also reported to the Linux
2475 kernel developers as
2476 <a href=
"https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=
51861">Kernel bugzilla
2477 report #
51861 2012-
12-
20</a
> (Intel SSD
520 stops working under load
2478 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
2479 Lenovo forums, both for
2480 <a href=
"http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-
520-
180GB-issue/m-p/
1070549">T430
2481 2012-
11-
10</a
> and for
2482 <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
2483 03-
20-
2013</a
>. The problem do not only affect installation. The
2484 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
2485 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
2486 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
2488 <a href=
"https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git
">small C program
2489 available
</a
> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
2490 minutes by writing to a file.
</p
>
2492 <p
>I
've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
2493 contacting PCHELP Norway (request
01D1FDP) which handle support
2494 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
2495 firmware. Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
2496 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i). I
2497 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
2503 <title>The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230
</title>
2504 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html
</link>
2505 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html
</guid>
2506 <pubDate>Thu,
4 Jul
2013 09:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2507 <description><p
>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
2508 trusty old Thinkpad X41. Unfortunately I did not have much time to
2509 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived. I ended up
2510 picking a
<a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230
">Thinkpad
2511 X230
</a
> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu
2512 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly. As I write
2513 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
2514 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
2515 with an expencive door stop.
</p
>
2517 <p
>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2518 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2519 listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
2520 feature at
<ahref=
"http://www.prisjakt.no/
">Prisjakt
</a
>, which
2521 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2522 requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
2523 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.
</p
>
2525 <p
>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
2526 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
2527 to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly good and the
2528 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
2529 used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
2530 new laptop now. :)
</p
>
2532 <p
>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.
</p
>
2537 <title>Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram
0.4)
</title>
2538 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html
</link>
2539 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html
</guid>
2540 <pubDate>Tue,
25 Jun
2013 11:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2541 <description><p
>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
2542 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
2543 working. One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
2544 needed to get the hardware on my computer working. Most often this
2545 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
2546 controller or the ethernet card. Today I pushed version
0.4 of the
2547 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram
">Isenkram package
</a
>
2548 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
2549 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
2550 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
2551 debian packages. Here is a test run on my laptop:
</p
>
2553 <p
><pre
>
2554 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2555 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
2556 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
2557 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
2558 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
2559 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
2562 Preconfiguring packages ...
2563 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
2564 (Reading database ...
259727 files and directories currently installed.)
2565 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
2566 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (
0.28+squeeze1) ...
2568 </pre
></p
>
2570 <p
>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
2571 printed instead:
</p
>
2573 <p
><pre
>
2574 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2575 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules. exiting
2577 </pre
></p
>
2579 <p
>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
2580 me some time when setting up new machines. :)
</p
>
2582 <p
>So, how does it work? It look at the set of currently loaded
2583 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
2584 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information. Next, it
2585 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
2586 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
2587 requested firmware file. If the package is in the non-free section, a
2588 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
2589 <tt
>apt-get install
</tt
>. The end result is a slightly better working
2592 <p
>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
2593 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
2594 finally fix
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
655507">BTS report
2595 #
655507</a
>. There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
2596 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
2597 from the nearby Debian mirror.
</p
>
2602 <title>Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video
</title>
2603 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html
</link>
2604 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html
</guid>
2605 <pubDate>Tue,
11 Jun
2013 11:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2606 <description><p
>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
2607 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
2608 or on first boot from the hard disk. I
've seen it once in a while the
2609 last few years, but only recently understood the cause. I
've seen it
2610 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
2611 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops. The system to
2612 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
2613 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead. I do
2614 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
2615 i915 driver used by the
2616 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv
">Packard Bell
2617 EasyNote LV
</a
>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.
</p
>
2619 <p
>The problem can be worked around two ways. Either by adding
2620 i915.invert_brightness=
1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
2621 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=
1
2622 option when it load the i915 kernel module. On Debian and Ubuntu, it
2623 can be done by running these commands as root:
</p
>
2626 echo options i915 invert_brightness=
1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
2627 update-initramfs -u -k all
2630 <p
>Since March
2012 there is
2631 <a href=
"http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=
4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955
">a
2632 mechanism in the Linux kernel
</a
> to tell the i915 driver which
2633 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
2634 brightness setting automatically. To use it, one need to add a row in
2635 <a href=
"http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c
">the
2636 intel_quirks array
</a
> in the driver source
2637 <tt
>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c
</tt
> (look for
"<tt
>static
2638 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks
</tt
>"), specifying the PCI device
2639 number (vendor number
8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
2642 <p
>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from
<tt
>lspci
2643 -vvnn
</tt
> for the video card in question:
</p
>
2645 <p
><pre
>
2646 00:
02.0 VGA compatible controller [
0300]: Intel Corporation \
2647 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [
8086:
0156] \
2648 (rev
09) (prog-if
00 [VGA controller])
2649 Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [
1025:
0688]
2650 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
2651 ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
2652 Status: Cap+
66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast
>TAbort- \
2653 <TAbort-
<MAbort-
>SERR-
<PERR- INTx-
2655 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ
42
2656 Region
0: Memory at c2000000 (
64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=
4M]
2657 Region
2: Memory at b0000000 (
64-bit, prefetchable) [size=
256M]
2658 Region
4: I/O ports at
4000 [size=
64]
2659 Expansion ROM at
<unassigned
> [disabled]
2660 Capabilities:
<access denied
>
2661 Kernel driver in use: i915
2662 </pre
></p
>
2664 <p
>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:
</p
>
2666 <p
><pre
>
2667 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
2669 /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
2670 {
0x0156,
0x1025,
0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
2673 </pre
></p
>
2675 <p
>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
2676 <tt
>modinfo i915
</tt
>), information about hardware needing the
2677 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
2678 <a href=
"http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel
">dri-devel
2679 (at) lists.freedesktop.org
</a
> mailing list to reach the kernel
2680 developers. But my email about the laptop sent
2013-
06-
03 have not
2682 <a href=
"http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/
2013-June/thread.html
">the
2683 web archive for the mailing list
</a
>, so I suspect they do not accept
2684 emails from non-subscribers. Because of this, I sent my patch also to
2685 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
2686 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
710938">BTS report #
710938</a
>, to make
2687 sure the patch is not lost.
</p
>
2689 <p
>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
2690 with this problem working properly with Linux. If you use Gnome, your
2691 worries should be over at this point. But if you use KDE, there is
2692 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
2693 the screen during login. I
've reported it to Debian as
2694 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
711237">BTS report #
711237</a
>, and
2695 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
2696 this. Perhaps you can help? Perhaps you know what the Gnome
2697 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
2698 developers? Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
2699 during login? If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
2700 you do not know how to update BTS).
</p
>
2702 <p
>Update
2013-
07-
19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
2703 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
2704 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
2705 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
2706 backlight.
</p
>
2711 <title>How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows
8</title>
2712 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html
</link>
2713 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html
</guid>
2714 <pubDate>Mon,
27 May
2013 15:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2715 <description><p
>Two days ago, I asked
2716 <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
2717 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
2718 preinstalled with Windows
8</a
>. I found a solution, but am horrified
2719 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
2720 and Windows
8.
</p
>
2722 <p
>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
2723 secure booting or fast boot. I suspect fast boot was the problem,
2724 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
2725 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
2726 enough to tell.
</p
>
2728 <p
>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
2729 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive! This is as far as I
2730 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
2731 without accepting the Windows
8 license agreement. I am told (and
2732 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
2733 firmware setup once booted into Windows
8. But as I believe the terms
2734 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
2735 was never an alternative. I do not enter agreements I do not intend
2736 to follow.
</p
>
2738 <p
>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
2739 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
2740 work. But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
2741 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows
8 certified laptops. Is
2742 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
2743 it close to impossible for
"normal
" users to install Linux without
2744 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms? Or at least not
2745 without risking to loose the warranty?
</p
>
2747 <p
>I
've updated the
2748 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv
">Linux Laptop
2749 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV
</a
>, to ensure the next person
2750 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
2753 <p
>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
2754 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.
</p
>
2759 <title>How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows
8?
</title>
2760 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html
</link>
2761 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html
</guid>
2762 <pubDate>Sat,
25 May
2013 18:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2763 <description><p
>I
've run into quite a problem the last few days. I bought three
2764 new laptops for my parents and a few others. I bought Packard Bell
2765 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer. But I
2766 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it. The
2767 computer is preinstalled with Windows
8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
2768 instead of a BIOS to boot.
</p
>
2770 <p
>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
2771 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick. I have yet
2772 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work. when I turn on
2773 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
2774 the normal boot menu. I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
2775 USB stick booting. When booting, it first ask for the language to
2776 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
2777 Windows
8 terms of use. As these terms are completely unacceptable to
2778 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
2779 to get it to boot the Linux installer.
</p
>
2781 <p
>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
2782 <a href=
"http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv
">Packard Bell
2783 EasyNote LV
</a
> model. If you have any idea how to get Linux
2784 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
2785 page. If I can
't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
2786 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.
</p
>
2788 <p
>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
2789 using UEFI and
"secure boot
" by making it impossible to install Linux
2790 on new Laptops?
</p
>
2795 <title>How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation
</title>
2796 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html
</link>
2797 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html
</guid>
2798 <pubDate>Fri,
17 May
2013 11:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2799 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a
> is
2800 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools. It
2801 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
2802 pupils in the primary schools. It provide both the central server,
2803 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
2804 educational software. The project was founded almost
12 years ago,
2805 2001-
07-
02. If you want to support the project, which is in need for
2806 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
2807 <a href=
"http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html
">please
2808 donate some money
</a
>.
2810 <p
>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
2811 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
2812 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation. It isn
't very
2813 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
2814 the Debian Edu installer.
</p
>
2816 <p
>The script,
2817 <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/
>
2818 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
2819 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
2820 into a Debian Edu Workstation:
</p
>
2824 <li
>Add skolelinux related APT sources.
</li
>
2825 <li
>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.
</li
>
2826 <li
>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
2827 our configuration.
</li
>
2828 <li
>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
2829 /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
2830 according to the profile specified in the config above,
2831 overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.
</li
>
2832 <li
>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
2833 that could not be done using preseeding.
</li
>
2834 <li
>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.
</li
>
2838 <p
>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
2839 replicated like this. Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
2840 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
2841 the needed packages.
</p
>
2843 <p
>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
2844 setting up
<a href=
"http://www.raspberrypi.org
">Raspberry Pi
</a
> as a
2845 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
2846 <a href=
"http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage
">Raspbian
</a
> installation and
2847 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
2848 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).
</p
>
2850 <p
>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
2851 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
2852 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:
</p
>
2854 <p
><pre
>
2855 PROFILE=
"Roaming-Workstation
"
2856 DESKTOP=
"lxde
"
2857 </pre
></p
>
2859 <p
>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
2860 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
2861 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
2867 <title>Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?
</title>
2868 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html
</link>
2869 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html
</guid>
2870 <pubDate>Sat,
11 May
2013 20:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2871 <description><P
>In January,
2872 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html
">I
2873 announced a
</a
> new
<a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%
23debian-lego
">IRC
2874 channel #debian-lego
</a
>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
2875 community interested in
<a href=
"http://www.lego.com/
">LEGO
</a
>, the
2876 marvellous construction system from Denmark. We also created
2877 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners
">a wiki page
</a
> to have
2878 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes. And several
2879 people showed up to help. I was very happy to see the effect of my
2880 call. Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
2881 <a href=
"http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego
">hardware::hobby:lego
</a
>
2882 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count
10 packages related to
2883 LEGO and
<a href=
"http://mindstorms.lego.com/
">Mindstorms
</a
>:
</p
>
2885 <p
><table
>
2886 <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
>
2887 <tr
><td
><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad
">leocad
</a
></td
><td
>virtual brick CAD software
</td
></tr
>
2888 <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
>
2889 <tr
><td
><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd
">lnpd
</a
></td
><td
>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS
</td
></tr
>
2890 <tr
><td
><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc
">nbc
</a
></td
><td
>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
</td
></tr
>
2891 <tr
><td
><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc
">nqc
</a
></td
><td
>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX
</td
></tr
>
2892 <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
>
2893 <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
>
2894 <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
>
2895 <tr
><td
><a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n
">t2n
</a
></td
><td
>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
</td
></tr
>
2896 </table
></p
>
2898 <p
>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
2899 currently available in Jessie/testing. leocad is so far only
2900 available in experimental.
</p
>
2902 <p
>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
2903 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
2904 for LEGO designers.
</p
>
2909 <title>Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy
</title>
2910 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html
</link>
2911 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html
</guid>
2912 <pubDate>Sun,
5 May
2013 07:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2913 <description><p
>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
2914 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2013/
20130504">release announcement
2915 for Debian Wheezy
</a
> was waiting in my mail box. This is a great
2916 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
2919 <p
>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
2920 in particular make me very happy to see included. The
2921 <a href=
"http://scratch.mit.edu/
">Scratch
</a
> program, made famous by
2922 the
<a href=
"http://www.code.org/
">Teach kids code
</a
> movement, is
2923 included for the first time. Alongside similar programs like
2924 <a href=
"http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/
">kturtle
</a
> and
2925 <a href=
"http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art
">turtleart
</a
>,
2926 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
2927 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
2928 computer. Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
2931 <p
>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
2932 Edu/Skolelinux release too. The
2933 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/
2013/
04/msg00132.html
">first
2934 alpha release
</a
> went out last week, and the next should soon
2940 <title>Isenkram
0.2 finally in the Debian archive
</title>
2941 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html
</link>
2942 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html
</guid>
2943 <pubDate>Wed,
3 Apr
2013 23:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
2944 <description><p
>Today the
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram
">Isenkram
2945 package
</a
> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
2946 for many months. I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
2947 2013-
01-
27, and today it was accepted into the archive.
</p
>
2949 <p
>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
2950 install to work with a pluggable hardware device. The suggestion pop
2951 up when the device is plugged in. For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
2952 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
2953 the NXT controller. Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
2959 <title>Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)
</title>
2960 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html
</link>
2961 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html
</guid>
2962 <pubDate>Sat,
2 Feb
2013 09:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
2963 <description><p
>My
2964 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html
">last
2965 bitcoin related blog post
</a
> mentioned that the new
2966 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin
">bitcoin package
</a
> for
2967 Debian was waiting in NEW. It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
2968 2013-
01-
19, and have been available in unstable since then. It was
2969 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
2970 version too.
</p
>
2972 <p
>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
2973 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
2974 architectures. For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
2975 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
2976 architectures (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
672524">BTS #
672524</a
>).
2977 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
2978 no-one have been able to propose a fix. If you got an idea what is
2979 failing, please let us know via the BTS.
</p
>
2981 <p
>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
2982 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
2983 if it run short on space (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
696715">BTS
2984 #
696715</a
>). So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
2987 <p
>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2988 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2989 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
2994 <title>Welcome to the world, Isenkram!
</title>
2995 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html
</link>
2996 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html
</guid>
2997 <pubDate>Tue,
22 Jan
2013 22:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
2998 <description><p
>Yesterday, I
2999 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html
">asked
3000 for testers
</a
> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
3001 pluggable hardware devices, which I
3002 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html
">set
3003 out to create
</a
> earlier this month. Several valuable testers showed
3004 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
3005 people. But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
3006 for this project. Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
3007 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name. In the
3008 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
3009 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git
">collab-maint
</a
>
3010 repository in Debian. The new name? It is
<strong
>Isenkram
</strong
>.
3011 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use
</p
>
3014 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
3015 cd isenkram
&& git-buildpackage -us -uc
3018 <p
>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet. If you
3019 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
3020 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
3021 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)
</p
>
3023 <p
>If you wonder what
'isenkram
' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
3024 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc. Typical hardware
3025 stuff, in other words. I
've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
3026 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
3029 <p
><strong
>Update
2013-
01-
26</strong
>: Added -us -us to build
3030 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
3033 <p
><strong
>Update
2013-
01-
27</strong
>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
3034 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.
</p
>
3039 <title>First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian
</title>
3040 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html
</link>
3041 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html
</guid>
3042 <pubDate>Mon,
21 Jan
2013 12:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3043 <description><p
>Early this month I set out to try to
3044 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html
">improve
3045 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices
</a
>. Now my
3046 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience. To test
3048 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/
">source
3049 from the Debian Edu subversion repository
</a
>, build and install the
3050 package. You might have to log out and in again activate the
3051 autostart script.
</p
>
3053 <p
>The design is simple:
</p
>
3057 <li
>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
3058 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.
</li
>
3060 <li
>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3061 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3062 initially did.
</li
>
3064 <li
>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3065 the APT database, a database
3066 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup
">available
3067 via HTTP
</a
> and a database available as part of the package.
</li
>
3069 <li
>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3070 isn
't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3071 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3072 package or packages.
</li
>
3074 <li
>If the user click on the
'install package now
' button, ask
3075 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.
</li
>
3077 <li
>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3078 package while showing progress information in a window.
</li
>
3082 <p
>I still need to come up with a better name for the system. Here
3083 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action. First the
3084 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3085 approve all the dependencies. Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.
</p
>
3087 <p
><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2013-
01-
21-hw-support-
1-notification.png
">
3088 <br
><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2013-
01-
21-hw-support-
2-password.png
">
3089 <br
><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2013-
01-
21-hw-support-
3-dependencies.png
">
3090 <br
><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2013-
01-
21-hw-support-
4-installing.png
">
3091 <br
><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2013-
01-
21-hw-support-
5-installing-details.png
" width=
"70%
"></p
>
3093 <p
>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3094 is already useful. The database of hardware to package mappings also
3095 need more work. It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3096 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3097 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3098 method. I
've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3099 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3100 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.
</p
>
3102 <p
><strong
>Update
2013-
01-
21 16:
50</strong
>: Due to popular demand,
3103 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3104 '<tt
>svn checkout
3105 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3106 hw-support-handler; debuild
</tt
>'. If you lack debuild, install the
3107 devscripts package.
</p
>
3109 <p
><strong
>Update
2013-
01-
23 12:
00</strong
>: The project is now
3110 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3111 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository. See
3112 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html
">build
3113 instructions
</a
> for details.
</p
>
3118 <title>Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service
</title>
3119 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html
</link>
3120 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html
</guid>
3121 <pubDate>Sat,
19 Jan
2013 09:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3122 <description><p
>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died. It died quietly and
3123 suddenly in bed. With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
3124 black. The power button was no longer able to turn it on. It was a
3125 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had. Better than both
3126 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S. Far better than the
3127 Compaq I had before that. Now I need to find a replacement. To keep
3128 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
3129 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
3130 not a durable solution.
3132 <p
>My laptop needs are fairly modest. This is my wishlist from when I
3133 got a new one more than
10 years ago. It still holds true.:)
</p
>
3137 <li
>Lightweight (around
1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
3138 than A4).
</li
>
3139 <li
>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.
</li
>
3140 <li
>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.
</li
>
3141 <li
>Long battery life time. Preferable a week.
</li
>
3142 <li
>Internal WIFI network card.
</li
>
3143 <li
>Internal Twisted Pair network card.
</li
>
3144 <li
>Some USB slots (
2-
3 is plenty)
</li
>
3145 <li
>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.
</li
>
3146 <li
>Video resolution at least
1024x768, with size around
12" (A4 paper
3148 <li
>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
3149 X.org packages.
</li
>
3150 <li
>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
3155 <p
>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
3156 list. The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
3157 last
10-
15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
3158 at other features to choose my laptop. But are there still made as
3159 robust laptops as my X41? The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
3160 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
3161 Lenovo took over. But I
've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
3162 still be useful.
</p
>
3164 <p
>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
3165 external keyboard? I
'll have to check the
3166 <a href=
"http://www.linux-laptop.net/
">Linux Laptops site
</a
> for
3167 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
3168 of the vendors listed on the
<a href=
"http://linuxpreloaded.com/
">Linux
3169 Pre-loaded site
</a
>.
</p
>
3174 <title>How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type
</title>
3175 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html
</link>
3176 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html
</guid>
3177 <pubDate>Fri,
18 Jan
2013 10:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3178 <description><p
>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
3179 install to get support for a given MIME type. Thanks to
3180 <a href=
"https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins
">specifications
3181 done by Ubuntu
</a
> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
3182 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
3183 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
3184 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:
</p
>
3190 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3195 version = pkg.candidate
3197 version = pkg.installed
3200 record = version.record
3201 if not record.has_key(
'Npp-MimeType
'):
3203 mime_types = record[
'Npp-MimeType
'].split(
',
')
3204 for t in mime_types:
3205 t = t.rstrip().strip()
3207 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
3209 mimetype =
"audio/ogg
"
3210 if
1 < len(sys.argv):
3211 mimetype = sys.argv[
1]
3212 print
"Browser plugin packages supporting %s:
" % mimetype
3213 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3214 print
" %s
" %pkg
3217 <p
>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:
</p
>
3220 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
3221 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
3223 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
3224 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
3225 browser-plugin-gnash
3229 <p
>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
3230 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
3231 packages. It would be great if Debian supported such feature too. Is
3232 anyone working on adding it?
</p
>
3234 <p
><strong
>Update
2013-
01-
18 14:
20</strong
>: The Debian BTS
3235 request for icweasel support for this feature is
3236 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
484010">#
484010</a
> from
2008 (and
3237 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
698426">#
698426</a
> from today). Lack
3238 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
3239 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.
</p
>
3244 <title>What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?
</title>
3245 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html
</link>
3246 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html
</guid>
3247 <pubDate>Wed,
16 Jan
2013 10:
10:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3248 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal
">DEP-
11
3249 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive
</a
>, is a
3250 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
3251 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
3252 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing. With such
3253 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
3254 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
3255 downloaded by the browser.
</p
>
3257 <p
>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
3258 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
3259 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there. The result
3261 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest
">Skolelinux FTP
3262 site
</a
>. Using the collected information, it become possible to
3263 answer the question in the title. Here are the
20 most supported MIME
3264 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
3265 The complete list is available from the link above.
</p
>
3267 <p
><strong
>Debian Stable:
</strong
></p
>
3271 ----- -----------------------
3287 18 application/x-ogg
3294 <p
><strong
>Debian Testing:
</strong
></p
>
3298 ----- -----------------------
3314 18 application/x-ogg
3321 <p
><strong
>Debian Unstable:
</strong
></p
>
3325 ----- -----------------------
3342 18 application/x-ogg
3348 <p
>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
3349 information mentioned in DEP-
11. I have not yet had time to look at
3350 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
3353 <p
><strong
>Update
2013-
01-
16 13:
35</strong
>: Updated numbers after
3354 discovering a typo in my script.
</p
>
3359 <title>Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware
</title>
3360 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html
</link>
3361 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html
</guid>
3362 <pubDate>Tue,
15 Jan
2013 08:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3363 <description><p
>Yesterday, I wrote about the
3364 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html
">modalias
3365 values provided by the Linux kernel
</a
> following my hope for
3366 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html
">better
3367 dongle support in Debian
</a
>. Using this knowledge, I have tested how
3368 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
3369 to hardware. This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
3370 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
3371 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
3374 <p
>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
3375 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
3376 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
3379 <p
><blockquote
>
3380 Package: package-name
3381 <br
>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)
</p
>
3382 </blockquote
></p
>
3384 <p
>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
3385 for a given modalias value using this file.
</p
>
3387 <p
>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
3388 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class
0E01):
</p
>
3390 <p
><blockquote
>
3392 <br
>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)
</p
>
3393 </blockquote
></p
>
3395 <p
>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
3396 CardBus bridge (bus class
0607) PCI device is present:
</p
>
3398 <p
><blockquote
>
3399 Package: pcmciautils
3400 <br
>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
3401 </blockquote
></p
>
3403 <p
>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
3404 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs
04D8:F8DA:
</p
>
3406 <p
><blockquote
>
3407 Package: colorhug-client
3408 <br
>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)
</p
>
3409 </blockquote
></p
>
3411 <p
>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
3412 file in the Debian archive. Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
3413 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.
</p
>
3415 <p
>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
3416 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
3417 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
3418 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
3419 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information. I
've
3420 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
3421 is working as it should with my prototype. It even made it to Ubuntu
3424 <p
>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
3425 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
3426 implementation of the lookup code. The idea is to create files for
3427 each modalias and let the shell do the matching. Please check out and
3429 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co
">hw-support-lookup
</a
>
3430 shell script. It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
3431 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
3432 repository where I currently work on my prototype.
</p
>
3434 <p
>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
3435 install yubikey-personalization:
</p
>
3437 <p
><blockquote
>
3438 % ./hw-support-lookup
3439 <br
>yubikey-personalization
3441 </blockquote
></p
>
3443 <p
>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
3444 propose to install the pcmciautils package:
</p
>
3446 <p
><blockquote
>
3447 % ./hw-support-lookup
3448 <br
>pcmciautils
3450 </blockquote
></p
>
3452 <p
>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
3453 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co
">my
3454 database
</a
>, please tell me about it.
</p
>
3456 <p
>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
3457 packages and hardware. One source would be to look at packages with
3458 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
3459 extract their modalias information. Another would be to look at
3460 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
3461 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
3462 generate a modalias matching rule. I have not tested any of these to
3463 see if it work.
</p
>
3465 <p
>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
3466 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
3467 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
3468 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%
23debian-devel
">#debian-devel
</a
>.
</p
>
3473 <title>Modalias strings - a practical way to map
"stuff
" to hardware
</title>
3474 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html
</link>
3475 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html
</guid>
3476 <pubDate>Mon,
14 Jan
2013 11:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3477 <description><p
>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
3478 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
3479 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
3480 to document the details. Here are my findings so far, also available
3482 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/
">the
3483 Debian Edu subversion repository
</a
>:
3485 <p
><strong
>Modalias decoded
</strong
></p
>
3487 <p
>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
3488 values stands for. It is in part based on information from
3489 &lt;URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias
">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias
</a
> &gt;,
3490 &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;,
3491 &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
3492 &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;.
3494 <p
>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
3495 this shell script:
</p
>
3498 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u
3501 <p
>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
3502 using modinfo:
</p
>
3505 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
3506 alias: serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
3507 alias: serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
3511 <p
><strong
>PCI subtype
</strong
></p
>
3513 <p
>A typical PCI entry can look like this. This is an Intel Host
3514 Bridge memory controller:
</p
>
3516 <p
><blockquote
>
3517 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
3518 </blockquote
></p
>
3520 <p
>This represent these values:
</p
>
3525 sv
00001028 (subvendor)
3526 sd
000001AD (subdevice)
3528 sc
00 (bus subclass)
3532 <p
>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from
'lspci
3533 -n
' as
8086:
2770. The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
3534 0600. The
0600 class is a host bridge. Other useful bus values are
3535 0300 (VGA compatible card) and
0200 (Ethernet controller).
</p
>
3537 <p
>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
3540 <p
><strong
>USB subtype
</strong
></p
>
3542 <p
>Some typical USB entries can look like this. This is an internal
3543 USB hub in a laptop:
</p
>
3545 <p
><blockquote
>
3546 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
3547 </blockquote
></p
>
3549 <p
>Here is the values included in this alias:
</p
>
3552 v
1D6B (device vendor)
3553 p
0001 (device product)
3555 dc
09 (device class)
3556 dsc
00 (device subclass)
3557 dp
00 (device protocol)
3558 ic
09 (interface class)
3559 isc
00 (interface subclass)
3560 ip
00 (interface protocol)
3563 <p
>The
0900 device class/subclass means hub. Some times the relevant
3564 class is in the interface class section. For a simple USB web camera,
3565 these alias entries show up:
</p
>
3567 <p
><blockquote
>
3568 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
3569 <br
>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
3570 <br
>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
3571 <br
>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
3572 </blockquote
></p
>
3574 <p
>Interface class
0E01 is video control,
0E02 is video streaming (aka
3575 camera),
0101 is audio control device and
0102 is audio streaming (aka
3576 microphone). Thus this is a camera with microphone included.
</p
>
3578 <p
><strong
>ACPI subtype
</strong
></p
>
3580 <p
>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff. This is an IR
3581 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:
</p
>
3583 <p
><blockquote
>
3584 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
3585 </blockquote
></p
>
3587 <p
>The values between the colons are IDs.
</p
>
3589 <p
><strong
>DMI subtype
</strong
></p
>
3591 <p
>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
3592 and model. This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
3593 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:
</p
>
3595 <p
><blockquote
>
3596 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(
1.66):bd06/
15/
2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
3597 </blockquote
></p
>
3599 <p
>The values present are
</p
>
3602 bvn IBM (BIOS vendor)
3603 bvr
1UETB
6WW(
1.66) (BIOS version)
3604 bd
06/
15/
2005 (BIOS date)
3605 svn IBM (system vendor)
3606 pn
2371H4G (product name)
3607 pvr ThinkPadX40 (product version)
3608 rvn IBM (board vendor)
3609 rn
2371H4G (board name)
3610 rvr NotAvailable (board version)
3611 cvn IBM (chassis vendor)
3612 ct
10 (chassis type)
3613 cvr NotAvailable (chassis version)
3616 <p
>The chassis type
10 is Notebook. Other interesting values can be
3617 found in the dmidecode source:
</p
>
3621 4 Low Profile Desktop
3634 17 Main Server Chassis
3635 18 Expansion Chassis
3637 20 Bus Expansion Chassis
3638 21 Peripheral Chassis
3640 23 Rack Mount Chassis
3649 <p
>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
3650 table. For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
3651 claim it is a desktop.
</p
>
3653 <p
><strong
>SerIO subtype
</strong
></p
>
3655 <p
>This type is used for PS/
2 mouse plugs. One example is from my
3656 test machine:
</p
>
3658 <p
><blockquote
>
3659 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
3660 </blockquote
></p
>
3662 <p
>The values present are
</p
>
3671 <p
>This type is supported by the psmouse driver. I am not sure what
3672 the valid values are.
</p
>
3674 <p
><strong
>Other subtypes
</strong
></p
>
3676 <p
>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
3677 file2alias.c. There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
3678 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
3679 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
3680 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro. I did not spend time documenting all of
3681 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
3682 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.
</p
>
3684 <p
><strong
>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values
</strong
></p
>
3686 <p
>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
3687 one can use the following shell script:
</p
>
3690 for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u); do \
3691 echo
"$id
" ; \
3692 /sbin/modprobe --show-depends
"$id
"|sed
's/^/ /
' ; \
3696 <p
>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
3697 list is very long on my test machine):
</p
>
3701 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
3703 FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
3705 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
3706 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
3707 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
3708 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
3709 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
3710 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
3711 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
3712 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
3716 <p
>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
3717 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
3718 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
3719 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%
23debian-devel
">#debian-devel
</a
>.
</p
>
3721 <p
><strong
>Update
2013-
01-
15:
</strong
> Rewrite
"cat $(find ...)
" to
3722 "find ... -print0 | xargs -
0 cat
" to make sure it handle directories
3723 in /sys/ with space in them.
</p
>
3728 <title>Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint
</title>
3729 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html
</link>
3730 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html
</guid>
3731 <pubDate>Thu,
10 Jan
2013 20:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3732 <description><p
>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
3733 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
3734 Launcher and updated the Debian package
3735 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile
">pymissile
</a
> to make
3736 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in. I
3737 also added a
"Modaliases
" header to test it in the Debian archive and
3738 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
3739 plug in his rocket launcher. In the process I moved the source to a
3740 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
3741 contribute.
<a href=
"http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/
">Upstream
</a
>
3742 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
3743 years of relative silence. The new git repository is not listed in
3744 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
3745 bit more before I upload the new version. If you want to check out
3746 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
3747 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git
">gitweb
3748 view
</a
> or use
"<tt
>git clone
3749 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git
</tt
>".
</p
>
3754 <title>Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian
</title>
3755 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html
</link>
3756 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html
</guid>
3757 <pubDate>Wed,
9 Jan
2013 15:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3758 <description><p
>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
3759 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
3760 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
3761 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
3762 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
3763 machine. Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
3764 Linux distribution. When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
3765 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
3766 I need to talk to it. When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
3767 yubikey-personalization package. The information required to do this
3768 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.
</p
>
3770 <p
>Some years ago, I proposed to
3771 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
05/msg01206.html
">use
3772 the discover subsystem to implement this
</a
>. The idea is fairly
3777 <li
>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
3778 starting when a user log in.
</li
>
3780 <li
>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
3781 hardware is inserted into the computer.
</li
>
3783 <li
>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
3784 database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
3785 packages.
</li
>
3787 <li
>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
3788 package, and make it easy to install it.
</li
>
3792 <p
>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
3793 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
3794 discover database to find packages and
3795 <a href=
"http://www.packagekit.org/
">PackageKit
</a
> to install
3798 <p
>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
3799 draft package is now checked into
3800 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/
">the
3801 Debian Edu subversion repository
</a
>. In the process, I updated the
3802 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html
">discover-data
</a
>
3803 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
3804 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
3805 2.2013.01.09 to unstable. I also discovered that the current
3806 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html
">discover
</a
>
3807 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
3808 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present. I ported it to use
3809 libusb as a fall back option to get it working. The fixed package
3810 version
2.1.2-
6 is now in experimental (didn
't upload it to unstable
3811 because of the freeze).
</p
>
3813 <p
>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
3814 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
3815 inserted):
</p
>
3817 <p align=
"center
"><img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2013-
01-
09-hw-autoinstall.png
"></p
>
3819 <p
>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
3820 install the proposed packages by pressing the
"Please install
3821 program(s)
" button should to be implemented.
</p
>
3823 <p
>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
3824 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
3825 from hardware to Debian packages. Check if
'discover-pkginstall -l
'
3826 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
3827 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
3828 reportbug if it isn
't. Or, if you know of a better way to provide
3829 such mapping, please let me know.
</p
>
3831 <p
>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
3832 should be considered before it is ready for production use. Is dbus
3833 the correct way to detect new hardware? At the moment I look for HAL
3834 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
3835 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop. Are there better events to use?
3836 How should the user be notified? Is the desktop notification
3837 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
3838 popup instead? How should packages be installed? When should they
3839 not be installed?
</p
>
3841 <p
>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
3842 please send me an email. :)
</p
>
3847 <title>New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian
</title>
3848 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html
</link>
3849 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html
</guid>
3850 <pubDate>Wed,
2 Jan
2013 15:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3851 <description><p
>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
3852 <a href=
"http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx
">LEGO Mindstorm
3853 NXT
</a
>. My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
3854 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
3855 already in Debian Squeeze. If Debian support for LEGO is something
3856 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
3857 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%
23debian-lego
">#debian-lego
</a
> (server
3858 irc.debian.org). There is a lot that could be done to improve the
3859 Debian support for LEGO designers. For example both CAD software
3860 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)
</p
>
3862 <p
>Update
2012-
01-
03: A
3863 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners
">project page
</a
>
3864 including links to Lego related packages is now available.
</p
>
3869 <title>How to backport bitcoin-qt version
0.7.2-
2 to Debian Squeeze
</title>
3870 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html
</link>
3871 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html
</guid>
3872 <pubDate>Tue,
25 Dec
2012 20:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3873 <description><p
>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
3874 year! I hope next year will prove to be a good year.
</p
>
3876 <p
><a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/
">Bitcoin
</a
>, the digital
3877 decentralised
"currency
" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
3878 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
3879 experiment. And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
3880 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/
">Debian
</a
> is about to improve a bit.
3881 The
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin
">new debian source
3882 package
</a
> (version
0.7.2-
2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
3883 in
<a href=
"http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html
">the NEW queue
</A
>
3884 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
3887 <p
>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
3888 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
3889 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:
</p
>
3891 <blockquote
><pre
>
3892 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
3894 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=
1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
3895 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
3896 </pre
></blockquote
>
3898 <p
>You might have to install some build dependencies as well. The
3899 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
3900 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment. Note that the
3901 client will download the complete set of bitcoin
"blocks
", which need
3902 around
5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment. Make sure your
3903 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
3904 all the blocks. The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
3905 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
3906 not be able to get all the features out of the client.
</p
>
3908 <p
>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3909 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3910 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
3915 <title>A word on bitcoin support in Debian
</title>
3916 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html
</link>
3917 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html
</guid>
3918 <pubDate>Fri,
21 Dec
2012 23:
59:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
3919 <description><p
>It has been a while since I wrote about
3920 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/
">bitcoin
</a
>, the decentralised
3921 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
3922 have been busy elsewhere. But two days ago, I started looking at the
3923 state of
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin
">bitcoin in
3924 Debian
</a
> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet. The package
3925 is now maintained by a
3926 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/
">team of
3927 people
</a
>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team. We
3928 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
3929 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
3930 Wheezy. It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
3931 backports). The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
3932 it from entering testing. To try to help the team and improve the
3933 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
3934 reports. I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
3936 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin
">PPA for
3937 Ubuntu
</a
>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
3938 Debian package.
</p
>
3940 <p
>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
3941 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
3942 improve the package. It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
3943 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
3944 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
3945 setup. As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
3946 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-
20121217/
000041.html
">a
3947 patch to backport
</a
> the latest version. Jonas is going to look at
3948 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
3949 new version to unstable.
3951 <p
>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
3952 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system. I
3953 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
3954 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
3955 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
3956 transactions to Wikileaks. But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
3957 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
3958 they sell products and services. Improving the bitcoin support in
3959 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
3960 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
3961 pay with bitcoin is still not very good. The bitcoin: URI is a step
3962 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
3963 use. Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
3964 quick transaction. I believe there are other clients available, but
3965 have not tested them.
</p
>
3968 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html
">experiment
3969 with bitcoins
</a
> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
3970 I received
20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
3971 years ago, as can be
3972 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">seen
3973 on the blockexplorer service
</a
>. Thank you everyone for your
3974 donation. The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
3975 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
3976 number of users have gone up since then. If you use bitcoin and want
3977 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
3978 the same address as last time,
3979 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
3984 <title>Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists
</title>
3985 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html
</link>
3986 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html
</guid>
3987 <pubDate>Fri,
7 Sep
2012 13:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
3988 <description><p
>As I
3989 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html
">mentioned
3990 this summer
</a
>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
3991 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
3992 <a href=
"https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook
">Gitorious
3993 repository for the project
</a
>.
</p
>
3995 <p
>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
3996 to the HTML version. To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
3997 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
3998 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.
</p
>
4000 <p
>Want to sing? You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
4001 PostScript formats at
4002 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/
">Petter
's Computer
4003 Science Songbook
</a
>.
</p
>
4008 <title>Gratulerer med
19-årsdagen, Debian!
</title>
4009 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html
</link>
4010 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gratulerer_med_19__rsdagen__Debian_.html
</guid>
4011 <pubDate>Thu,
16 Aug
2012 11:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
4012 <description><p
>I dag fyller
4013 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2012/
20120813">Debian-prosjektet
19
4014 år
</a
>. Jeg har fulgt det de siste
12 årene, og er veldig glad for å kunne
4015 si gratulerer med dagen, Debian!
</p
>
4020 <title>Song book for Computer Scientists
</title>
4021 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html
</link>
4022 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html
</guid>
4023 <pubDate>Sun,
24 Jun
2012 13:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
4024 <description><p
>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
4025 <a href=
"http://www.uit.no/
">University of Tromsø
</a
>, I started
4026 collecting computer related songs for use at parties. The original
4027 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
4028 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
4029 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format. I have
4030 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
4031 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
4032 help me extend and update the book. If anyone is volunteering to help
4033 me with this, send me an email. Also let me know if there are songs
4034 missing in my book.
</p
>
4036 <p
>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
4037 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
4038 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
4039 Especially now that
<a href=
"http://debconf12.debconf.org/
">Debconf
4040 12</a
> is about to start (and I am not going). Want to sing? Check
4041 out
<a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/
">Petter
's
4042 Computer Science Songbook
</a
>.
4047 <title>Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge
</title>
4048 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html
</link>
4049 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html
</guid>
4050 <pubDate>Mon,
21 Nov
2011 12:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4051 <description><p
>At work we have heaps of servers. I believe the total count is
4052 around
1000 at the moment. To be able to get help from the vendors
4053 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
4054 up to date. If the firmware isn
't the latest and greatest, the
4055 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
4056 firmware is upgraded. So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
4057 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
4058 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
4059 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
4060 the tools to do so.
</p
>
4062 <p
>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
4063 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got. Most of
4064 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
4065 so far. This blog post is about the Dell part.
</P
>
4067 <p
>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
4068 <a href=
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz
">an XML file
</a
>
4069 with firmware information for all
11th generation servers, listing
4070 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
4071 site I can find it. Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
4072 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
4073 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
4074 be activated on the first reboot.
</p
>
4076 <p
>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
4077 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
4078 servers at a site? Please get in touch and lets share resources.
</p
>
4080 <p
><pre
>
4084 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
4086 # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
4088 'XML::Simple
' =
> 'perl-XML-Simple
',
4090 for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
4091 eval
"use $module;
";
4093 my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
4094 system(
"yum install -y $pkg
");
4095 eval
"use $module;
";
4099 my $errorsto =
'pere@hungry.com
';
4105 sub run_firmware_script {
4106 my ($opts, $script) = @_;
4108 print STDERR
"fail: missing script name\n
";
4111 print STDERR
"Running $script\n\n
";
4113 if (
0 == system(
"sh $script $opts
")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
4114 print STDERR
"success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n
";
4116 print STDERR
"fail: firmware script returned error\n
";
4120 sub run_firmware_scripts {
4121 my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
4122 # Run firmware packages
4123 for my $dir (@dirs) {
4124 print STDERR
"info: Running scripts in $dir\n
";
4125 opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die
"Unable to open directory $dir: $!
";
4126 while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
4127 next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
4128 run_firmware_script($opts,
"$dir/$s
");
4136 print STDERR
"info: Downloading $url\n
";
4137 system(
"wget --quiet \
"$url\
"");
4142 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4145 if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
4147 # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
4148 system(
'yum install -y compat-libstdc++-
33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail
');
4150 my $tmpdir = tempdir(
4154 fetch_dell_fw(
'catalog/Catalog.xml.gz
');
4155 system(
'gunzip Catalog.xml.gz
');
4156 my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list(
'Catalog.xml
');
4157 # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
4158 my $fwopts =
"-q
";
4160 for my $url (@paths) {
4161 fetch_dell_fw($url);
4163 run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
4165 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model
'$product
'.\n
";
4166 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n
";
4170 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model
'$product
'.\n
";
4171 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n
";
4177 my $url =
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path
";
4181 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
4182 # firmware packages to download from Dell. Only work for Linux
4183 # machines and
11th generation Dell servers.
4184 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
4185 my $filename = shift;
4187 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4189 my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
4191 print STDERR
"Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n
";
4193 my $xml = XMLin($filename);
4195 for my $bundle (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareBundle}}) {
4196 my $brand = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
4197 my $model = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Model}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
4199 if (
"ARRAY
" eq ref $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}) {
4200 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}[
0]-
>{osCode};
4202 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}-
>{osCode};
4204 if ($mybrand eq $brand
&& $mymodel eq $model
&& "LIN
" eq $oscode)
4206 @paths = map { $_-
>{path} } @{$bundle-
>{Contents}-
>{Package}};
4209 for my $component (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareComponent}}) {
4210 my $componenttype = $component-
>{ComponentType}-
>{value};
4212 # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
4213 next if
'APAC
' eq $componenttype;
4215 my $cpath = $component-
>{path};
4216 for my $path (@paths) {
4217 if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
4218 push(@paths, $cpath);
4226 <p
>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
4227 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking. Anyone know a
4228 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers? At the
4229 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
4235 <title>How is booting into runlevel
1 different from single user boots?
</title>
4236 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html
</link>
4237 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html
</guid>
4238 <pubDate>Thu,
4 Aug
2011 12:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
4239 <description><p
>Wouter Verhelst have some
4240 <a href=
"http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot
">interesting
4241 comments and opinions
</a
> on my blog post on
4242 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html
">the
4243 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian
</a
> and my blog post about
4244 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html
">the
4245 default KDE desktop in Debian
</a
>. I only have time to address one
4246 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
4247 misunderstanding he bring forward:
</p
>
4249 <p
><blockquote
>
4250 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
4251 single-user system (by adding
'single
' to the kernel command line;
4252 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
4253 </blockquote
></p
>
4255 <p
>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
4256 and booting into runlevel
1 is the same. I am not surprised he
4257 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
4258 thing to believe. But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
4259 runlevel
1 do not work properly and it isn
't the same as single user
4260 mode. I
'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
4261 hard to explain.
</p
>
4263 <p
>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
4264 "<tt
>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin
</tt
>". This means the only thing that is
4265 executed in single user mode is sulogin. Single user mode is a boot
4266 state
"between
" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
4267 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
4268 enters the single user state. When switching to runlevel
1, the state
4269 is in fact not ending in runlevel
1, but it passes through runlevel
1
4270 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
4271 runs
"init -t1 S
" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
4272 1. It is confusing that the
'S
' (single user) init mode is not the
4273 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
4276 <p
>This summary might make it clearer. When booting for the first
4277 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
4278 "<tt
>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin
</tt
>". When booting into
4279 runlevel
1, the following commands are executed:
"<tt
>/etc/init.d/rc
4280 S; /etc/init.d/rc
1; /sbin/sulogin
</tt
>". A problem show up when
4281 trying to continue after visiting single user mode. Not all services
4282 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
4283 unpredicatble state. This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
4284 after visiting single user mode.
</p
>
4286 <p
>A similar problem with runlevel
1 is caused by the amount of
4287 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/. When switching from say runlevel
2
4288 to runlevel
1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
4289 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
4290 started again when switching away from runlevel
1 to the runlevels
4291 2-
5. I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
4292 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not
<strong
>required
</strong
> to get a
4293 functioning single user mode during boot.
</p
>
4295 <p
>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
4296 and discovered this problem a few years ago. I suspect it originates
4297 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.
</p
>
4302 <title>What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing
</title>
4303 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html
</link>
4304 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html
</guid>
4305 <pubDate>Sat,
30 Jul
2011 14:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
4306 <description><p
>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
4307 are started from /etc/rcS.d/. In fact, there is a bite more of them
4308 than make sense, and this causes a few problems. What kind of
4309 problems, you might ask. There are at least two problems. The first
4310 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
4311 runlevel
1. One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
4312 the expected state. The other is that single user boot will sometimes
4313 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
4314 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
4315 machine from a problem in that subsystem. A minor additional point is
4316 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
4317 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
4318 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.
</p
>
4320 <p
>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/. In short, only the
4321 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
4322 presented during a single user boot should go there. Everything else
4323 should go into the numeric runlevels. This means things like
4324 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
4325 the numeric runlevels. Today in Debian, there are around
115 init.d
4326 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
4327 out. Do your package have one of them? Please help us make single
4328 user and runlevel
1 better by moving it.
</p
>
4330 <p
>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
4331 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
4332 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
4333 is presented.
</p
>
4335 <p
>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound. To keep
4336 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
4337 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
4338 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
4339 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
4340 moved first. This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
4341 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
4342 the system state correct. This will require some coordination when it
4343 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
4344 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
4345 on them. Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
4346 package, while others are still left to do. I wish I had time to work
4347 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
4348 find time to push this forward.
</p
>
4353 <title>What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu
</title>
4354 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html
</link>
4355 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html
</guid>
4356 <pubDate>Fri,
29 Jul
2011 08:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
4357 <description><p
>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
4358 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
4359 desktop to be useful for more people. The use case for this is my
4360 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
4363 <p
>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
4364 implement. After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
4365 do this in Debian we would have a source.
</p
>
4369 <li
><strong
>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.
</strong
> When there
4370 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
4371 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
4372 tool to handle it. I have no problem guiding both of my parents
4373 through the process over the phone. If a kernel reboot is required,
4374 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool. Last
4375 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
4378 <li
><strong
>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
4379 plugins.
</strong
> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
4380 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
4381 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
4382 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
4383 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
4384 Packages file in the APT archive). If one or more packages are found,
4385 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
4386 type. If the package require the user to accept some non-free
4387 license, this is explained to the user. The entire process make it
4388 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
4389 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
4390 not the browser for any missing features.
</li
>
4392 <li
><strong
>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
4393 handlers.
</strong
> When the media players encounter a format or codec
4394 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
4395 should search for a package that would add support for it. This
4396 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H
.264. The selection
4397 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
4398 plugin handling. This is as far as I know implemented using a
4399 gstreamer hook. The end result is that the user easily get access to
4400 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
4401 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.
</li
>
4403 <li
><strong
>Better browser handling of some MIME types.
</strong
> When
4404 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
4405 start emacs to show it. If I remember correctly, when doing the same
4406 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser. At least I
4407 know Opera will show text files within the browser. I much prefer the
4408 latter behaviour.
</li
>
4412 <p
>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
4413 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
4414 it do not matter much.
</p
>
4416 <p
>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
4417 Debian release. It would require the coordinated effort of several
4418 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.
</p
>
4423 <title>Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze
</title>
4424 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html
</link>
4425 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html
</guid>
4426 <pubDate>Tue,
26 Jul
2011 12:
25:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
4427 <description><p
>The Norwegian
<a href=
"http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi
</A
>
4428 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
4429 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around
10
4430 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
4431 security support for a few years.
</p
>
4433 <p
>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
4434 that are missing in Debian at the moment. It would be great if these
4435 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
4436 their own
<a href=
"http://www.fixmystreet.com
">FixMyStreet
</a
> clone
4437 in their own country using only Debian packages. The list of modules
4438 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn
't very long, and I hope the perl group
4439 will find time to package the
12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
4440 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
4441 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
4442 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
4443 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
4444 easier in the future.
</p
>
4446 <p
>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
4447 installed on my server was a simple call to
'cpan2deb Module::Name
'
4448 and
'dpkg -i
' to install the resulting package. But this leave me
4449 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
4450 do not have time for.
</p
>
4455 <title>A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks
</title>
4456 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html
</link>
4457 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html
</guid>
4458 <pubDate>Sun,
3 Apr
2011 22:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
4459 <description><p
>Here is a small update for my English readers. Most of my blog
4460 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
4461 update in English.
</p
>
4463 <p
>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
4464 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
4465 of the British service
4466 <a href=
"http://www.fixmystreet.com/
">FixMyStreet
</a
> up and running,
4467 and it has been running for a month now. The entire project has been
4468 organised by me and two others. Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
4469 to fund the development work. In January I drafted a contract with
4470 <a href=
"http://www.mysociety.org/
">mySociety
</a
> on what to develop,
4471 and in February the development took place. Most of it involved
4472 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
4473 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
4474 running in any country by now. The Norwegian
4475 <a href=
"http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi
</a
> is using
4476 <a href=
"http://www.openstreetmap.org/
">OpenStreetmap
</a
> as the map
4477 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
4478 support for this had to be added/fixed.
</p
>
4480 <p
>The Norwegian version went live March
3th, and we spent the weekend
4481 polishing the system before we announced it March
7th. The system is
4482 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost
3000
4483 problem reports in a few weeks. Soon we hope to announce the Android
4484 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
4485 public infrastructure.
</p
>
4487 <p
>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
4488 such service?
</p
>
4493 <title>Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software
</title>
4494 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html
</link>
4495 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html
</guid>
4496 <pubDate>Fri,
28 Jan
2011 15:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4497 <description><p
>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
4498 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo. My idea is that
4499 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
4500 available on the Internet, and check our locally
4501 maintained/distributed software against this information. It should
4502 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten. The
4503 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
4504 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
4505 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
4506 out which security holes were present in our free software
4507 collection.
</p
>
4509 <p
>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
4510 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
4511 consistent way across data sources. I considered several ways to do
4512 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
4513 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
4514 existing naming scheme. And it seem like I am not the first one to
4515 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
4516 solution. Enter the
<a href=
"http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html
">Common
4517 Platform Enumeration
</a
> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
4518 software, hardware and other platform components. The CPE ids are
4519 mapped to CVEs in the
<a href=
"http://web.nvd.nist.gov/
">National
4520 Vulnerability Database
</a
>, allowing me to look up know security
4521 issues for any CPE name. With this in place, all I need to do is to
4522 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
4523 This is fairly trivial (I google for
'cve cpe $package
' and check the
4524 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).
</p
>
4526 <p
>To give you an example. The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
4527 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip. If the old version
1.3.3 was the package to
4528 check out, one could look up
4529 <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
4530 in NVD
</a
> and get a list of
6 security holes with public CVE entries.
4531 The most recent one is
4532 <a href=
"http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-
2010-
0001">CVE-
2010-
0001</a
>,
4533 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
4534 list of affected versions is provided.
</p
>
4536 <p
>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
4537 for offline processing of issues. Using this dump, I
've written a
4538 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
4539 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs. One give it CPEs
4540 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
4541 security issues out.
</p
>
4543 <p
>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
4544 information need to be high. For that to happen, I believe as many as
4545 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database. I notice
4547 <a href=
"https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt
">a
4548 map from CVE to CPE
</a
>, indicating that they are using the CPE
4549 information. I
'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.
</p
>
4551 <p
>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
4552 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
4553 the CVE database in NVD. The result look fairly good, but there are
4554 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
4555 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
4556 Debian believe are affected by a CVE). Hope to find time to improve
4557 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
4558 someone maintaining it. So far my three emails with questions and
4559 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
4560 established soon.
</p
>
4562 <p
>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
4563 mapping. It would be useful to know which packages in for example
4564 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
4565 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
4566 for their packages.
</p
>
4571 <title>Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?
</title>
4572 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html
</link>
4573 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html
</guid>
4574 <pubDate>Sun,
23 Jan
2011 00:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4575 <description><p
>In the
4576 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data
">discover-data
</a
>
4577 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
4578 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
4579 information. One part of this script that I find very useful when
4580 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
4581 to the PCI device it claims. It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
4582 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with. To see
4583 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
4584 <tt
>/usr/share/bug/discover-data
3>&1</tt
>. The relevant output on
4585 one of my machines like this:
</p
>
4589 10de:
03eb i2c_nforce2
4592 10de:
03f0 snd_hda_intel
4601 <p
>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
4602 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor
3:
</p
>
4605 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
4606 echo loaded pci modules:
4608 cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
4609 for address in * ; do
4610 if [ -d
"$address/driver/module
" ] ; then
4611 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4612 if grep -q
"^$module
" /proc/modules ; then
4613 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
4614 id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk
'{print $
3}
'`
4615 echo
"$id $module
"
4624 <p
>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
4628 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
4629 echo loaded usb modules:
4631 cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
4632 for address in * ; do
4633 if [ -d
"$address/driver/module
" ] ; then
4634 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
4635 if grep -q
"^$module
" /proc/modules ; then
4636 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
4637 id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk
'{print $
6}
')
4638 if [
"$id
" ] ; then
4639 echo
"$id $module
"
4649 <p
>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
4655 <title>How to test if a laptop is working with Linux
</title>
4656 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html
</link>
4657 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html
</guid>
4658 <pubDate>Wed,
22 Dec
2010 14:
55:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4659 <description><p
>The last few days I have spent at work here at the
<a
4660 href=
"http://www.uio.no/
">University of Oslo
</a
> testing if the new
4661 batch of computers will work with Linux. Every year for the last few
4662 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
4663 computers, and this year HP won the bid. Two different desktops and
4664 five different laptops are on the list this year. We in the UNIX
4665 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
4666 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
4667 university.
</p
>
4669 <p
>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
4670 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well. To test, I PXE
4671 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
4672 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware. When
4673 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
4674 on. If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
4675 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
4676 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.
</p
>
4678 <p
>Anyway, to get to the point of this post. Here is the simple tests
4679 I perform on a new model.
</p
>
4683 <li
>Is PXE installation working? I
'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
4684 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment. If I feel like it, I also test with
4685 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.
</li
>
4687 <li
>Is X.org working? If the graphical login screen show up after
4688 installation, X.org is working.
</li
>
4690 <li
>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working? Running glxgears (in
4691 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
4692 reported by the program.
</li
>
4694 <li
>Is sound working? With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
4695 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful. If there
4696 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
4697 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound. I
4698 normally test this by playing
4699 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/
20101012-chef/
">a HTML5
4700 video
</a
> in Firefox/Iceweasel.
</li
>
4702 <li
>Is the USB subsystem working? I test this by plugging in a USB
4703 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li
>
4705 <li
>Is the CD/DVD player working? I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
4706 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li
>
4708 <li
>Is any built in camera working? Test using cheese, and see if a
4709 picture from the v4l device show up.
</li
>
4711 <li
>Is bluetooth working? Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
4712 any bluetooth devices are discovered. In my office, I normally see a
4715 <li
>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working. I have
4716 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
4717 notice this.
</li
>
4719 <li
>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working? I
'm testing if the
4720 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
4723 <li
>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
4724 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
4725 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc? The set of buttons differ from
4726 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
4729 <li
>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
4730 acceleration sensors etc. I rarely test these, as I do not know how
4731 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
4732 existence.
</li
>
4736 <p
>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
4737 for the HP machines I am testing. I
'm not done yet, so I will report
4738 the test results later. For now I can report that HP
8100 Elite work
4739 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook
8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
4740 and audio fail on RHEL6. Ubuntu Maverik worked with
8440p. As you
4741 can see, I have most machines left to test. One interesting
4742 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
4743 RHEL6 with glxgears. No idea why.
</p
>
4748 <title>Some thoughts on BitCoins
</title>
4749 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html
</link>
4750 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html
</guid>
4751 <pubDate>Sat,
11 Dec
2010 15:
10:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4752 <description><p
>As I continue to explore
4753 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/
">BitCoin
</a
>, I
've starting to wonder
4754 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
4755 and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.
</p
>
4757 <p
>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
4758 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
4759 is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been
4760 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
4761 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
4762 that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for
4763 all transactions. There I can see that my address
4764 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
>
4765 have received
16.06 Bitcoin, the
4766 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/
1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv
8MHqvwst
3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv
8MHqvwst
3</a
>
4767 address of Simon Phipps have received
181.97 BitCoin and the address
4768 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/
1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt
">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt
</A
>
4769 of EFF have received
2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and
4770 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
4771 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
4772 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
4773 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I
'm told
4774 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
4775 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
4776 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.
</p
>
4778 <p
>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
4779 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
4780 without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting
4781 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
4782 If the Skolelinux foundation
4783 (
<a href=
"http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html
">SLX
4784 Debian Labs
</a
>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
4785 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
4786 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
4787 not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate
4788 should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay
4789 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
4790 BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.
</p
>
4792 <p
>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
4793 accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to
4794 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
4795 easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
4796 access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really
4797 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
4798 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I
4799 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
4800 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
4801 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
4802 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I
'm sure they
4803 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
4804 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
4805 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
4806 currencies.
</p
>
4808 <p
>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
4809 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
4810 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
4811 to see which one get the next lump of cash). The
"winner
" get
50
4812 BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
4813 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
4814 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
4815 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the
50
4817 <a href=
"http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/
">BitCoin Pool
</a
>
4818 if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a
4819 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
4820 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
4823 <p
>Update
2010-
12-
15: Found an
<a
4824 href=
"http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi
">interesting
4825 criticism
</a
> of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
4826 it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be
4827 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.
</p
>
4832 <title>Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money
</title>
4833 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html
</link>
4834 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html
</guid>
4835 <pubDate>Fri,
10 Dec
2010 08:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4836 <description><p
>With this weeks lawless
4837 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
2010/
12/
06/wikileaks/index.html
">governmental
4838 attacks
</a
> on Wikileak and
4839 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/
2010/
12/
06/war_on_speech
">free
4840 speech
</a
>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
4841 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
4843 <a href=
"http://webmink.com/
2010/
12/
06/now-accepting-bitcoin/
">Simon
4844 Phipps on bitcoin
</a
> reminded me about a project that a friend of
4845 mine mentioned earlier. I decided to follow Simon
's example, and get
4846 involved with
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/
">BitCoin
</a
>. I got
4847 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
4848 some bitcoins to get started. I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
4849 for helping me remember BitCoin.
</p
>
4851 <p
>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder? It is a digital
4852 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
4853 networks. It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
4854 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
4855 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions. The
4856 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets
2.9
4857 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
4858 line client builds just fine. Hopefully Jonas
4859 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
578157">will get the package into
4860 Debian
</a
> soon.
</p
>
4862 <p
>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
4863 There are
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/trade
">companies accepting
4864 bitcoins
</a
> when selling services and goods, and there are even
4865 currency
"stock
" markets where the exchange rate is decided. There
4866 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising. If you
4867 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
4869 <a href=
"https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/
">some for free
</a
> (
0.05
4870 bitcoin at the time of writing). Use
4871 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/
">BitcoinWatch
</a
> to keep an eye
4872 on the current exchange rates.
</p
>
4874 <p
>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
4875 machines. If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
4876 donations to the address
4877 <b
>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</b
>. Thank you!
</p
>
4882 <title>Why isn
't Debian Edu using VLC?
</title>
4883 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html
</link>
4884 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html
</guid>
4885 <pubDate>Sat,
27 Nov
2010 11:
30:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4886 <description><p
>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
4887 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
4888 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
4889 to play a video file or stream. Only if VLC fail will I drag out
4890 gmplayer to see if it can do better. The reason is mostly the failure
4891 model and trust. When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
4892 reporting the problem. When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
4893 just hangs. The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.
<p
>
4895 <p
>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
4896 mplayer in
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian
4897 Edu/Skolelinux
</a
>. The reason is simple. We need a good browser
4898 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
4899 not very good. For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
4900 is no way for the user to pause the video. Also, when I
4901 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia
">last
4902 tested the browser plugins
</a
> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
4903 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked. If
4904 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
4905 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.
</P
>
4907 <p
>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
4908 annoying. The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
4909 keyboard shortcuts. When the player is in full screen mode, its
4910 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
4911 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode. I
4912 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
4913 window mode. Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
4914 the current video. It is very nice when playing short videos from the
4915 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
4916 what is going on.
</p
>
4921 <title>Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove
</title>
4922 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html
</link>
4923 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html
</guid>
4924 <pubDate>Mon,
22 Nov
2010 14:
15:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
4925 <description><p
>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
4926 upgrade testing of the
4927 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">Lenny
4928 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a
> to do
<tt
>apt-get autoremove
</tt
> when using apt-get.
4929 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
4930 can now present the updated result from today:
</p
>
4932 <p
>This is for Gnome:
</p
>
4934 <p
>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p
>
4936 <blockquote
><p
>
4941 browser-plugin-gnash
4948 freedesktop-sound-theme
4950 gconf-defaults-service
4965 gnome-desktop-environment
4969 gnome-session-canberra
4974 gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
4980 libapache2-mod-dnssd
4983 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
4986 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
4987 libboost-python1.42
.0
4988 libboost-thread1.42
.0
4990 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0
4992 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
4999 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5014 libgnomepanel2.24-cil
5019 libgtksourceview2.0-common
5020 libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5021 libmono-addins0.2-cil
5022 libmono-cairo2.0-cil
5023 libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5024 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
5025 libmono-posix2.0-cil
5026 libmono-security2.0-cil
5027 libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5028 libmono-system2.0-cil
5031 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
5032 libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
5042 libtelepathy-farsight0
5051 nautilus-sendto-empathy
5055 python-aptdaemon-gtk
5057 python-beautifulsoup
5072 python-gtksourceview2
5083 python-pkg-resources
5090 python-twisted-conch
5096 python-zope.interface
5101 rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5108 system-config-printer-udev
5110 telepathy-mission-control-
5
5121 </p
></blockquote
>
5123 <p
>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p
>
5125 <blockquote
><p
>
5131 fast-user-switch-applet
5150 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
5152 libsdl1.2debian-alsa
5158 system-config-printer
5163 </p
></blockquote
>
5165 <p
>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p
>
5167 <blockquote
><p
>
5168 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5169 </p
></blockquote
>
5171 <p
>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p
>
5173 <blockquote
><p
>
5175 </p
></blockquote
>
5177 <p
>This is for KDE:
</p
>
5179 <p
>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p
>
5181 <blockquote
><p
>
5183 </p
></blockquote
>
5185 <p
>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p
>
5187 <blockquote
><p
>
5190 </p
></blockquote
>
5192 <p
>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p
>
5194 <blockquote
><p
>
5208 kdeartwork-emoticons
5210 kdeartwork-theme-icon
5214 kdebase-workspace-bin
5215 kdebase-workspace-data
5229 kscreensaver-xsavers
5244 plasma-dataengines-workspace
5246 plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
5247 plasma-runners-addons
5248 plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
5249 plasma-scriptengine-python
5250 plasma-scriptengine-qedje
5251 plasma-scriptengine-ruby
5252 plasma-scriptengine-webkit
5253 plasma-scriptengines
5254 plasma-wallpapers-addons
5255 plasma-widget-folderview
5256 plasma-widget-networkmanagement
5260 xscreensaver-data-extra
5262 xscreensaver-gl-extra
5263 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
5264 </p
></blockquote
>
5266 <p
>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p
>
5268 <blockquote
><p
>
5270 google-gadgets-common
5288 libggadget-qt-
1.0-
0b
5293 libkonqsidebarplugin4a
5302 libplasma-geolocation-interface4
5304 libplasmagenericshell4
5318 libsmokeknewstuff2-
3
5319 libsmokeknewstuff3-
3
5321 libsmokektexteditor3
5329 libsmokeqtnetwork4-
3
5335 libsmokeqtuitools4-
3
5347 plasma-dataengines-addons
5348 plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
5349 plasma-widget-lancelot
5350 plasma-widgets-addons
5351 plasma-widgets-workspace
5355 update-notifier-common
5356 </p
></blockquote
>
5358 <p
>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
5359 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
5360 differences. I have no idea what packages should be installed after
5361 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.
</p
>
5366 <title>Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images
</title>
5367 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html
</link>
5368 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html
</guid>
5369 <pubDate>Mon,
22 Nov
2010 11:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
5370 <description><p
>Most of the computers in use by the
5371 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project
</a
>
5372 are virtual machines. And they have been Xen machines running on a
5373 fairly old IBM eserver xseries
345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
5374 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge
2950 host machine. This was a
5375 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
5376 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
5377 know is not supported by KVM. So to migrate, we had to convert
5378 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.
</p
>
5381 <a href=
"http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/
35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
">a
5382 nice recipe
</a
> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
5383 migration. It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
5384 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
5385 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data. I NFS mounted the
5386 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.
</p
>
5392 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/
35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
5397 if [ -z
"$
1" ] ; then
5398 echo
"Usage: $
0 &lt;hostname
&gt;
"
5404 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
5405 echo
"error: unable to find LVM volume for $host
"
5409 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs. not sure why.
5410 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk
'{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }
')
5411 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk
'{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }
')
5412 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
5415 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=
1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
5416 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
5418 parted $img mklabel msdos
5419 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap
0 $disksize
5420 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
5421 parted $img set
1 boot on
5424 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
5425 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
5427 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=
1M
5428 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
5429 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
5431 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
5432 losetup -d /dev/loop0
5435 <p
>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
5436 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.
</p
>
5438 <p
>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
5439 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-
686 and
5440 set up grub to boot from the disk image. After this, the KVM machines
5441 seem to work just fine.
</p
>
5446 <title>Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop
</title>
5447 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html
</link>
5448 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html
</guid>
5449 <pubDate>Sat,
20 Nov
2010 22:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
5450 <description><p
>I
'm still running upgrade testing of the
5451 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">Lenny
5452 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a
>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
5453 status. Here is a short update based on a test I ran
20101118.
</p
>
5455 <p
>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
5456 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
5457 can see if anything should be changed.
</p
>
5459 <p
>This is for Gnome:
</p
>
5461 <p
>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p
>
5463 <blockquote
><p
>
5464 apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
5465 browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-
4.3 cups-pk-helper
5466 dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
5467 freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
5468 gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
5469 geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
5470 gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
5471 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
5472 gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
5473 gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
5474 gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
5475 gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
5476 gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
5477 libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
5478 libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-
0 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
5479 libboost-python1.42
.0 libboost-thread1.42
.0 libchamplain-
0.4-
0
5480 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
5481 libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-
1.0-
2
5482 libepc-common libepc-ui-
1.0-
2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
5483 libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
5484 libgdl-
1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-
0 libgif4
5485 libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
5486 libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
5487 libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
5488 libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
5489 libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
5490 libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
5491 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
5492 libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
5493 libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-
6
5494 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6
.8
5495 libpolkit-gtk-
1-
0 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
5496 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6
.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
5497 libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-
4
5498 libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-
0.99-
0
5499 libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
5500 mono-
2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
5501 nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
5502 openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-
4suite-xml
5503 python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
5504 python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
5505 python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
5506 python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
5507 python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
5508 python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
5509 python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
5510 python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
5511 python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
5512 python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
5513 python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
5514 python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
5515 python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
5516 remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
5517 rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
5518 software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
5519 telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-
5 telepathy-salut tomboy
5520 totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
5521 transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
5523 </p
></blockquote
>
5525 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
5527 <blockquote
><p
>
5528 arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
5529 epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
5530 fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
5531 gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
5532 gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
5533 gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
5534 guile-
1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
5535 libavahi-ui0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7
5536 libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
5537 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1
5538 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3 libfaad0 libgadu3
5539 libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
5540 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
5541 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
5542 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-
1.0-
0
5543 libgtkhtml2-
0 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
5544 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
5545 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
5546 libmagick++
10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
5547 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
5548 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9
5549 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8
5550 libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
5551 libspeexdsp1 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libsvga1
5552 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
5553 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
5554 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
5555 sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
5556 totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
5557 </p
></blockquote
>
5559 <p
>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p
>
5561 <blockquote
><p
>
5562 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
5563 </p
></blockquote
>
5565 <p
>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p
>
5567 <blockquote
><p
>
5569 </p
></blockquote
>
5571 <p
>This is for KDE:
</p
>
5573 <p
>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p
>
5575 <blockquote
><p
>
5576 autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-
4.3 dcoprss
5577 edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
5578 ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
5579 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
5580 kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
5581 kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
5582 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
5583 kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
5584 kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
5585 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
5586 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
5587 kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
5588 killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
5589 kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
5590 ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42
.0
5591 libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
5592 libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
5593 libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
5594 libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
5595 libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
5596 libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
5597 libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
5598 libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
5599 libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
5600 lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
5601 openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
5602 parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
5603 pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
5604 speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
5606 </p
></blockquote
>
5608 <p
>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p
>
5610 <blockquote
><p
>
5611 amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
5612 dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
5613 kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
5614 kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
5615 keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
5616 kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
5617 kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
5618 klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
5619 kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
5620 kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
5621 kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
5622 ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
5623 ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
5624 kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
5625 kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
5626 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
5627 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-
0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2
5628 libboost-python1.34
.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
5629 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
5630 libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-
0 libicu38
5631 libiec61883-
0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
5632 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
5633 libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
5634 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
5635 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
5636 libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
5637 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
5638 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-
8 librss1 libsensors3
5639 libsmbios2 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90
5640 libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
5641 mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
5642 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
5643 ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
5644 </p
></blockquote
>
5646 <p
>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p
>
5648 <blockquote
><p
>
5649 dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
5650 kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
5651 kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
5652 kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
5653 netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
5654 xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
5655 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
5656 </p
></blockquote
>
5658 <p
>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p
>
5660 <blockquote
><p
>
5661 kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
5662 </p
></blockquote
>
5667 <title>Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd
</title>
5668 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html
</link>
5669 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html
</guid>
5670 <pubDate>Sat,
20 Nov
2010 07:
20:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
5671 <description><p
>Answering
5672 <a href=
"http://www.listware.net/
201011/gnash-dev/
67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html
">the
5673 call from the Gnash project
</a
> for
5674 <a href=
"http://www.gnashdev.org:
8010">buildbot
</a
> slaves to test the
5675 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
5676 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
5677 Debian/Squeeze. I hope this can help the developers in getting new
5678 releases out more often.
</p
>
5680 <p
>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
5681 I have considered setting up a
<a
5682 href=
"http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/
">Debian/kfreebsd
</a
>
5683 machine as well. I have also considered using the kfreebsd
5684 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the
5
5685 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video. Because of this, I
5686 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
5687 kfreebsd. Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
5688 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
5689 screen at random locations). Have not gotten very far with the
5690 testing. Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
5691 fatal problem. Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
5692 useful as a file server for NUUG. Will try to find time to set up a
5693 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.
</p
>
5698 <title>Debian in
3D
</title>
5699 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html
</link>
5700 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html
</guid>
5701 <pubDate>Tue,
9 Nov
2010 16:
10:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
5702 <description><p
><img src=
"http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/
23/e0/c4/f9/
2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg
"></p
>
5704 <p
>3D printing is just great. I just came across this Debian logo in
5706 <a href=
"http://blog.thingiverse.com/
2010/
11/
09/participatory-branding/
">the
5707 thingiverse blog
</a
>.
</p
>
5712 <title>Software updates
2010-
10-
24</title>
5713 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html
</link>
5714 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html
</guid>
5715 <pubDate>Sun,
24 Oct
2010 22:
45:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
5716 <description><p
>Some updates.
</p
>
5718 <p
>My
<a href=
"http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2
">gnash pledge
</a
> to
5719 raise money for the project is going well. The lower limit of
10
5720 signers was reached in
24 hours, and so far
13 people have signed it.
5721 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
5722 how far we can get before the time limit of December
24 is reached.
5725 <p
>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
5726 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
5727 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
5729 <a href=
"http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html
">kcov
</a
>,
5730 and can be used using
<tt
>kcov
&lt;directory
&gt;
&lt;binary
&gt;
</tt
>.
5731 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
5732 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
5733 libglib2.0-dev. Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
5734 solvable. I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.
</p
>
5736 <p
>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for
<a
5737 href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/
2010/
10/msg00002.html
">a
5738 new alpha release of Debian Edu
</a
>, and just published the second
5739 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
5740 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Skolelinux
</a
>
5741 release. Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
5742 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
5743 client servers and diskless workstations. A nice touch added
5744 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
5745 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.
</p
>
5750 <title>Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu
</title>
5751 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html
</link>
5752 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html
</guid>
5753 <pubDate>Sat,
4 Sep
2010 10:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
5754 <description><p
>In the
<a href=
"http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote
">Debian
5755 popularity-contest numbers
</a
>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
5756 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian. The sixth
5757 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla. This is a clear indication that
5758 working flash is important for Debian users. Around
10 percent of the
5759 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
5760 installed.
</p
>
5762 <p
>In the report written by Lars Risan in August
2008
5763 («
<a href=
"http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile
&do=view
&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf
">Skolelinux
5764 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
5765 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs
</a
>»), one of the most important problems
5766 schools experienced with
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian
5767 Edu/Skolelinux
</a
> was the lack of working Flash. A lot of educational
5768 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
5769 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
5770 good reason to stay with Windows.
</p
>
5772 <p
>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
5773 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
5774 everything you told him but could work fairly well. This was a
5775 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
5776 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
5777 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
5778 example Internet Explorer
6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
5779 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
5780 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
5781 pages they want to visit.
</p
>
5783 <p
>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
5784 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
5785 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
5786 Video to working out of the box. For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
5787 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
5788 the new release
0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
5789 unstable. The new version work with more sites that version
0.8.7.
5790 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
5791 release team have not had time to reply to it yet. I hope they agree
5792 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
5793 accept the new package into Squeeze.
</p
>
5798 <title>Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery
</title>
5799 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html
</link>
5800 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html
</guid>
5801 <pubDate>Tue,
27 Jul
2010 23:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
5802 <description><p
>I discovered this while doing
5803 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">automated
5804 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze
</a
>. A few packages
5805 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
5806 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
5807 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.
</p
>
5809 <p
>An example is from todays
5810 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-
20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt
">upgrade
5811 of KDE using aptitude
</a
>. In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
5812 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade. The cause is simple. If a
5813 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
5814 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
5815 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
5816 because its dependencies are unavailable.
</p
>
5818 <p
>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:
</p
>
5820 <blockquote
><pre
>
5821 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
5822 perl-modules depends on perl (
>=
5.10.1-
1); however:
5823 Version of perl on system is
5.10.0-
19lenny
2.
5824 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
5825 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
5826 </pre
></blockquote
>
5828 <p
>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
5829 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
527917">reported as a bug
</a
>, and will
5830 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
5831 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
5832 failures. Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
5833 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
5834 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
5835 of dependency loops.
</p
>
5838 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
06/msg00116.html
">the
5839 tireless effort by Bill Allombert
</a
>, the number of circular
5841 <a href=
"http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html
">left in Debian
5842 is dropping
</a
>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)
</p
>
5844 <p
>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
5845 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
590605">update-notifier
</a
> and
5846 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
590604">different behaviour
</a
> between
5847 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
5848 dependency. Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
5854 <title>What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP
</title>
5855 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html
</link>
5856 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html
</guid>
5857 <pubDate>Sat,
17 Jul
2010 21:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
5858 <description><p
>This is a
5859 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html
">followup
</a
>
5861 <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
5863 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html
">merging
5864 all
</a
> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.
</p
>
5866 <p
>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
5867 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
5868 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server. The two
5869 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.
</p
>
5871 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
5872 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
5873 on a Debian Edu main-server. Here is a summary.
5875 <p
><strong
>powerdns
</strong
></p
>
5877 <a href=
"http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend
">Clues
5878 on how to
</a
> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
5881 <p
>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
5882 One
"strict
" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
5883 using the same LDAP objects, and a
"tree
" mode where the forward and
5884 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
5885 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
5886 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.
</p
>
5888 <p
>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
5889 base, and uses a
"base
" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
5890 "dc=tjener,dc=intern,
" to the base with a filter for
5891 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)
" for the forward entry and
5892 "dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,
" with a filter for
5893 "(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)
" for the reverse entry. For
5894 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
5895 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
5896 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
5897 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
5898 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
5899 spfrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entries it is looking for
5900 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
5901 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
5902 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. The equivalent
5903 ldapsearch commands could look like this:
</p
>
5905 <blockquote
><pre
>
5906 ldapsearch -h ldap \
5907 -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
5908 -s base -x
'(associateddomain=tjener.intern)
' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
5909 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
5910 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
5911 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
5912 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
5914 ldapsearch -h ldap \
5915 -b dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
5916 -s base -x
'(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)
'
5917 dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
5918 hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
5919 srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
5920 </pre
></blockquote
>
5922 <p
>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
5923 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
5924 example LDAP objects used there. In addition to these objects, the
5925 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5926 also exist.
</p
>
5928 <blockquote
><pre
>
5929 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5931 objectclass: dnsdomain
5932 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5935 associateddomain: tjener.intern
5937 dn: dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5939 objectclass: dnsdomain2
5940 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
5942 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
5943 associateddomain:
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
5944 </pre
></blockquote
>
5946 <p
>In strict mode, the server behaves differently. When looking for
5947 forward DNS entries, it is doing a
"subtree
" scoped search with the
5948 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
5949 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)
" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
5950 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
5951 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
5952 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entires it also do a
5953 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is
"(arecord=
10.0.2.2)
"
5954 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
5955 modifytimestamp. In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
5956 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
5959 <p
>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
5960 like this:
</p
>
5962 <blockquote
><pre
>
5963 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
5964 '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)
' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
5965 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
5966 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
5967 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
5968 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
5970 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
5971 '(arecord=
10.0.2.2)
' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
5972 </pre
></blockquote
>
5974 <p
>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
5975 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
5976 reverse lookups.
</p
>
5978 <p
>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
5979 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
5980 need to generate a DNS reply. This make it able to work with any
5981 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.
</p
>
5983 <p
>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC
1274) and
5984 dnsdomain2 schemas. The latter is used for reverse entries like
5985 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.
</p
>
5987 <p
>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
5988 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
5989 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain). The use
5990 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
5991 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.
</p
>
5993 <p
>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
5994 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
5995 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
5996 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
5997 (zonename and relativedomainname).
</p
>
5999 <p
>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
6000 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
6001 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
6002 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
6003 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
6004 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):
</p
>
6006 <blockquote
><pre
>
6007 objectclass ( some-oid NAME
'dnsDomainAux
'
6010 MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
6011 DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
6012 TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
6013 NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
6014 A6Record $ DNAMERecord
6016 </pre
></blockquote
>
6018 <p
>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
6019 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
6020 all the attributes PowerDNS wants. I
've sent an email to the PowerDNS
6021 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
6022 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
6023 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.
</p
>
6025 <p
><strong
>ISC dhcp
</strong
></p
>
6027 <p
>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
6028 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want. This
6029 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
6030 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
6031 what is needed without having to read the source code.
</p
>
6033 <p
>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
6034 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
6035 stored. These are the relevant entries from
6036 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:
</p
>
6038 <blockquote
><pre
>
6039 ldap-base-dn
"dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
";
6040 ldap-dhcp-server-cn
"dhcp
";
6041 </pre
></blockquote
>
6043 <p
>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
6044 configuration it need. The cn
"dhcp
" is located using the given LDAP
6045 base and the filter
"(
&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))
". The
6046 search result is this entry:
</p
>
6048 <blockquote
><pre
>
6049 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6052 objectClass: dhcpServer
6053 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6054 </pre
></blockquote
>
6056 <p
>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
6057 subtree with DHCP configuration. The DHCP configuration subtree base
6058 is located using a base scope search with base
"cn=DHCP
6059 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
" and filter
6060 "(
&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))
".
6061 The search result is this entry:
</p
>
6063 <blockquote
><pre
>
6064 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6067 objectClass: dhcpService
6068 objectClass: dhcpOptions
6069 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6070 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
6071 dhcpStatements: authoritative
6072 dhcpOption: smtp-server code
69 = array of ip-address
6073 dhcpOption: www-server code
72 = array of ip-address
6074 dhcpOption: wpad-url code
252 = text
6075 </pre
></blockquote
>
6077 <p
>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time. When
6078 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
6079 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
6080 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
6081 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost. These provide options
6082 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc. Leaving out the
6083 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
6084 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
6085 related computer objects.
</p
>
6087 <p
>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
6088 of the client (
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00 in this example), using a subtree
6089 scoped search with
"cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
" as
6090 the base and
"(
&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
6091 00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00))
" as the filter. This is what a host object look
6094 <blockquote
><pre
>
6095 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6098 objectClass: dhcpHost
6099 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
6100 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
6101 </pre
></blockquote
>
6103 <p
>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
6104 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
6105 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure. On the
6106 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
6107 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries. The latter should make
6108 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
6109 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
6110 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
6111 structural object class.
6113 <p
><strong
>Conclusion
</strong
></p
>
6115 <p
>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
6116 to which LDAP schemas to use. While its
"tree
" mode is rigid when it
6117 come to the the LDAP structure, the
"strict
" mode is very flexible,
6118 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
6119 in the configuration.
</p
>
6121 <p
>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
6122 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
6123 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
6124 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
6125 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
6126 structure.
</p
>
6128 <p
>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
6129 this might work for Debian Edu:
</p
>
6131 <blockquote
><pre
>
6133 cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
6134 cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
6135 cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6136 cn=
10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6137 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6138 cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
6139 cn=
192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
6140 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
6141 ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
6142 cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
6143 </pre
></blockquote
>
6145 <P
>This is not tested yet. If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
6146 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
6147 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
6148 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.
</p
>
6150 <p
>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
6151 like this:
</p
>
6153 <blockquote
><pre
>
6154 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6157 objectClass: dhcpHost
6158 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6159 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
6160 associateddomain: hostname.intern
6161 arecord:
10.11.12.13
6162 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
6163 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
6164 </pre
></blockquote
>
6166 </p
>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
6167 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
6168 auxiliary object class.
</p
>
6173 <title>Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects
</title>
6174 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html
</link>
6175 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html
</guid>
6176 <pubDate>Wed,
14 Jul
2010 23:
45:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6177 <description><p
>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
6178 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
6179 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
6180 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
6181 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.
</p
>
6183 <p
>I
've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
6184 information finally found a solution that seem to work.
</p
>
6186 <p
>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
6187 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry. If
6188 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
6189 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
6190 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
6191 to a slave DNS server.
</p
>
6193 <p
>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
6194 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
6195 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
6196 I
've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
6197 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup. It
6198 seem to work.
</p
>
6200 <p
>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
6201 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
6202 an earlier email. The combined LDAP object will look something like
6205 <blockquote
><pre
>
6206 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
6208 objectClass: dhcphost
6209 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
6210 objectclass: dnsdomainaux
6211 associateddomain: hostname.intern
6212 arecord:
10.11.12.13
6213 dhcphwaddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
6214 dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
6216 </pre
></blockquote
>
6218 <p
>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
6219 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
6220 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress. LTSP will use
6221 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.
</p
>
6223 <p
>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
6224 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
6225 outside the
"DHCP Config
" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
6226 that. If I can
't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
6227 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
6228 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
6229 content. I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
6230 might be a good place to put it.
</p
>
6232 <p
>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6233 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
6238 <title>Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP
</title>
6239 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html
</link>
6240 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html
</guid>
6241 <pubDate>Sun,
11 Jul
2010 22:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6242 <description><p
>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
6243 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
6244 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
6245 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.
</p
>
6247 <p
>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
6248 to get configuration from LDAP. The idea is to look up the MAC
6249 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
6250 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
6251 LTSP clients.
</p
>
6253 <p
>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
6254 in a
"computer
" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
6255 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.
</p
>
6257 <p
>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
6258 this approach. A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
6259 need to be written. Comments, suggestions, etc?
</p
>
6261 <blockquote
><pre
>
6262 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
6264 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
6266 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
6267 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
6268 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
6270 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
6271 # existence of attribute names.
6273 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
6274 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
6275 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
6277 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
6278 # configuration settings. Something like this should work:
6280 # objectclass (
1.1.2.2 NAME
'ltspClientAux
'
6283 # MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
6285 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
6286 if [
"$LDAPSERVER
" ] ; then
6287 LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
6288 for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk
'{print $
5}
'|sort -u) ; do
6289 filter=
"(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))
"
6290 ldapsearch -h
"$LDAPSERVER
" -b
"$LDAPBASE
" -v -x
"$filter
" | \
6291 grep
'^ltspConfig
' | while read attr value ; do
6292 # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
6293 attr=$(echo $attr | sed
's/^ltspConfig//i
' | tr a-z A-Z)
6294 # bass value on to clients
6295 eval
"$attr=$value; export $attr
"
6299 </pre
></blockquote
>
6301 <p
>I
'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
6302 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
6303 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
6304 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
6305 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)
</p
>
6307 <p
>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6308 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
6310 <p
>Update
2010-
07-
17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
6311 configuration in LDAP that was created around year
2000 by
6312 <a href=
"http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html
">PC
6313 Xperience, Inc.,
2000</a
>. I found its
6314 <a href=
"http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/
">files
</a
> on a
6315 personal home page over at redhat.com.
</p
>
6320 <title>jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI
</title>
6321 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html
</link>
6322 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html
</guid>
6323 <pubDate>Fri,
9 Jul
2010 12:
55:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6324 <description><p
>Since
6325 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html
">my
6326 last post
</a
> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
6327 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma. The java application
6328 <a href=
"http://jxplorer.org/
">jXplorer
</a
> is claimed to be capable of
6329 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
6330 authenticate using Kerberos. I have only tested the Kerberos
6331 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
6332 LDAP with my test user yet. It is
6333 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html
">available in
6334 Debian
</a
> testing and unstable at the moment. The only problem I
6335 have with it is how it handle errors. If something go wrong, its
6336 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
6337 and remove the failing query. Nothing big, but very annoying.
</p
>
6342 <title>Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop
</title>
6343 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html
</link>
6344 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html
</guid>
6345 <pubDate>Sat,
3 Jul
2010 23:
55:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6346 <description><p
>Here is a short update on my
<a
6347 href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">my
6348 Debian Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrade testing
</a
>. Here is a summary of the
6349 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude. I
'm
6350 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
6351 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
6352 (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
584861">#
584861</a
> and
6353 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
585716">#
585716</a
>).
</p
>
6355 <p
>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
6356 complete list of the installed packages. Based on this I see these
6357 differences when I did a test run today. As usual, I do not really
6358 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
6359 publish the difference.
</p
>
6361 <p
>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p
>
6363 <blockquote
><p
>
6364 at-spi cpp-
4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6365 libatspi1.0-
0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-
1-common
6366 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
6367 libgtksourceview-common libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
6368 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
6369 libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
6370 python-
4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
6371 python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
6372 </p
></blockquote
>
6374 <p
>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p
>
6376 <blockquote
><p
>
6377 bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
6378 gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
6379 libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-
50
6380 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
6381 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9
6382 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3
6383 libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
6384 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
6385 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
6386 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-
0
6387 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
6388 libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++
10
6389 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
6390 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5
6391 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
6392 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
6393 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1
6394 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
6395 libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
6396 mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
6397 </p
></blockquote
>
6399 <p
>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p
>
6401 <blockquote
><p
>
6402 gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
6403 python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
6404 xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
6405 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
6406 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
6407 xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
6408 xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
6409 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
6410 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
6411 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
6412 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
6413 xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
6414 xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
6415 xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
6416 xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
6417 xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
6418 xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
6419 xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
6420 xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
6421 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
6422 xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
6423 </p
></blockquote
>
6425 <p
>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p
>
6427 <blockquote
><p
>
6428 deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
6429 xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
6430 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
6431 </p
></blockquote
>
6433 <p
>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
6434 <a href=
"http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=
9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120
">changed
6435 in git
</a
> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
6436 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
6437 the difference somewhat.
6442 <title>LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI
</title>
6443 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html
</link>
6444 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html
</guid>
6445 <pubDate>Mon,
28 Jun
2010 00:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6446 <description><p
>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
6447 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
6448 tool to browse the LDAP tree. The only one I was able to find in
6449 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
6450 <a href=
"http://luma.sourceforge.net/
">LUMA
</a
>, which has proved to
6451 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
6452 populated by default in Skolelinux. Thanks to it, I have been able to
6453 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
6454 objects. It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze. If you
6455 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)
</p
>
6457 <p
>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
6458 the BTS yet. There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
6459 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
6460 Debian submenu in KDE. I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
6463 <p
>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet. I would
6464 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
6465 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet. So in the mean time, I use
6466 <a href=
"http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/
">ldapvi
</a
> for that.
</p
>
6468 <p
>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
6469 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
6471 <p
>Update
2010-
06-
29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
6472 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html
">gq
</a
> package as a
6473 useful GUI alternative. It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
6474 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze. Unless that
6475 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.
</p
>
6480 <title>Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object
</title>
6481 <link>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
</link>
6482 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">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
</guid>
6483 <pubDate>Thu,
24 Jun
2010 00:
35:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6484 <description><p
>A while back, I
6485 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html
">complained
6486 about the fact
</a
> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
6487 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
6488 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.
</p
>
6490 <p
>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
6491 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
6492 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
6493 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.
</p
>
6495 <p
>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
6496 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
6497 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
6498 Debian Edu.
</p
>
6500 <p
>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
6502 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-
00">DHCP
6503 schema
</a
> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
6504 available today from IETF.
</p
>
6507 --- dhcp.schema (revision
65192)
6508 +++ dhcp.schema (working copy)
6510 objectclass (
2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
6511 NAME
'dhcpHost
'
6512 DESC
'This represents information about a particular client
'
6516 MAY (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
6517 X-NDS_CONTAINMENT (
'dhcpService
' 'dhcpSubnet
' 'dhcpGroup
') )
6520 <p
>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
6521 Edu/Squeeze. We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
6522 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.
</p
>
6524 <p
>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
6525 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
6530 <title>Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output
</title>
6531 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html
</link>
6532 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html
</guid>
6533 <pubDate>Wed,
16 Jun
2010 14:
55:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6534 <description><p
>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
6535 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run. Until now,
6536 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
6537 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
6538 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
6541 <blockquote
><pre
>
6542 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6543 tasksel --new-install
6544 </pre
></blockquote
>
6546 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
6547 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
6548 any output what so ever.
6550 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
6551 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
6552 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
6553 happen. Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
6554 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
6555 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run. I ended up using
6558 <blockquote
><pre
>
6559 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6560 cmd=
"$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed
's/debconf-apt-progress -- //
')
"
6562 </pre
></blockquote
>
6564 <p
>The content of $cmd is typically something like
"<tt
>aptitude -q
6565 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
6566 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
6567 ~pimportant
</tt
>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
6568 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
6569 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
6570 installation.
</p
>
6572 <p
>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
6573 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
6574 like this.
</p
>
6579 <title>Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude
</title>
6580 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html
</link>
6581 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html
</guid>
6582 <pubDate>Sun,
13 Jun
2010 09:
05:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6583 <description><p
>My
6584 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">testing
6585 of Debian upgrades
</a
> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I
've
6586 finally made the upgrade logs available from
6587 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
</a
>.
6588 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
6589 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting. This time
6590 I will only focus on their removal plans.
</p
>
6592 <p
>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
6593 to remove
72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze. The
6594 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
6595 xserver-xorg-video* drivers. Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
6596 sure why. When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove
129
6597 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
6598 longer needed. Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
6599 I do not know. Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?
</p
>
6601 <p
>For KDE, apt-get want to remove
82 packages, among them kdebase
6602 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
6603 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove
192 packages, none which are
6604 too surprising.
</p
>
6606 <p
>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
6607 and avoided, and perhaps others as well. Here are the complete list
6608 of planned removals. The complete logs is available from the URL
6609 above. Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
6610 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
6611 conffile questions. No idea why. I worked around it by using
6612 '<tt
>echo
>> /proc/
<em
>pidofdpkg
</em
>/fd/
0</tt
>' to tell dpkg to
6615 <p
><b
>apt-get gnome
72</b
>
6616 <br
>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
6617 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
6618 iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-
1-
0
6619 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
6620 nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
6621 serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
6622 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
6623 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
6624 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
6625 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
6626 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
6627 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
6628 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
6629 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
6630 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6631 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
6632 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
6633 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
6634 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
6635 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
6636 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
6637 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
6638 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
6639 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
6640 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
6641 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
6642 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
6643 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-
1.9
6644 xulrunner-
1.9-gnome-support
</p
>
6646 <p
><b
>aptitude gnome
129</b
>
6648 <br
>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-
4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
6649 djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
6650 gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
6651 gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
6652 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
6653 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
6654 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-
9 libeel2-
2.20
6655 libeel2-data libepc-
1.0-
1 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libfaad0 libgail-common
6656 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libgdl-
1-
0 libgdl-
1-common
6657 libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0
6658 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
6659 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
6660 libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-
0
6661 libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgucharmap6
6662 libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++
10
6663 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
6664 libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2
6665 libosp5 libparted1.8-
10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-
1.10.10
6666 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-
8
6667 libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8 libssh2-
1
6668 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
6669 libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
6670 libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
6671 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
6672 openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
6673 python-
4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
6674 python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
6675 python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
6676 swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
6677 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6678 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
6681 <p
><b
>apt-get kde
82</b
>
6683 <br
>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
6684 kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
6685 kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
6686 kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
6687 kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
6688 libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
6689 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
6690 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
6691 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
6692 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
6693 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
6694 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
6695 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
6696 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
6697 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6698 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
6699 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
6700 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
6701 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
6702 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
6703 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
6704 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
6705 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
6706 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
6707 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
6708 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
6709 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
6710 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-
1.9</p
>
6712 <p
><b
>aptitude kde
192</b
>
6713 <br
>bluez-utils cpp-
4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
6714 djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
6715 ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
6716 kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
6717 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
6718 kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
6719 kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
6720 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
6721 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
6722 kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
6723 kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
6724 klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
6725 kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
6726 krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
6727 ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
6728 kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
6729 kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
6730 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
6731 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-
0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
6732 libboost-python1.34
.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
6733 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
6734 libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-
0
6735 libicu38 libiec61883-
0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
6736 libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
6737 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
6738 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
6739 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
6740 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-
8 libsmbios2
6741 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
6742 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
6743 libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
6744 openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
6745 superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
6746 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
6747 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
6748 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
6749 xulrunner-
1.9</p
>
6755 <title>Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze
</title>
6756 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
</link>
6757 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
</guid>
6758 <pubDate>Fri,
11 Jun
2010 22:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6759 <description><p
>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
6760 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly. A few bugs
6761 have been discovered and reported in the process
6762 (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
585410">#
585410</a
> in nagios3-cgi,
6763 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
584879">#
584879</a
> already fixed in
6764 enscript and
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
584861">#
584861</a
> in
6765 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
6766 am working on a script to automate the test.
</p
>
6768 <p
>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
6769 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
6770 it. To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
6771 script is inserted. To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
6772 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
6773 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).
</p
>
6775 <p
>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
6776 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
6777 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
6778 is created. The bug report
6779 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
566000">#
566000</a
> make me suspect
6780 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
6781 to make sure the upgrade go well. Testing on virtual and real
6782 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
6783 do the trick in such settings anyway. This is a
6784 <a href=
"http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-
26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-
804130/
">known
6785 issue
</a
> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
6786 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
6787 working with old kernels or something like that. I really wish the
6788 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
6789 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
6790 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
6791 Debian Squeeze.
</p
>
6793 <p
>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades. This test
6794 script, which I call
<tt
>upgrade-test
</tt
> for now, is doing the
6797 <blockquote
><pre
>
6801 if [
"$
1" ] ; then
6810 exec
&lt; /dev/null
6812 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
6813 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
6815 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
6816 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
6817 cat
> $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
&lt;
&lt;EOF
6821 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
6825 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
6826 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
6827 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
6829 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
6831 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger. It need the test scripts
6832 # to return the correct answers.
6833 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
6834 chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
6836 # Include the desktop and laptop task
6837 for test in desktop laptop ; do
6838 echo
> $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
&lt;
&lt;EOF
6842 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
6845 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
6846 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
6847 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
6848 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
6850 echo deb $mirror $to main
> $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
6851 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
6852 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
6853 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
6855 </pre
></blockquote
>
6857 <p
>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
6858 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
6859 differently so far. I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
6860 regularly and post the result on the web. The Gnome upgrade currently
6861 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
6862 kdebase-workspace-data
</p
>
6864 <p
>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
6865 (KDE
167 KiB, Gnome
516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
6866 post, so I will refrain from trying. I can report that for Gnome,
6867 aptitude report
760 packages upgraded,
448 newly installed,
129 to
6868 remove and
1 not upgraded and
1024MB need to be downloaded while for
6869 KDE the same numbers are
702 packages upgraded,
507 newly installed,
6870 193 to remove and
0 not upgraded and
1117MB need to be downloaded
</p
>
6872 <p
>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
6873 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
6874 booting without a hitch. Was unsure if there were still bugs with
6875 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
6876 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
6882 <title>Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it
</title>
6883 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html
</link>
6884 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html
</guid>
6885 <pubDate>Sun,
6 Jun
2010 23:
55:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6886 <description><p
>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
6887 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
6888 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd. The packages with such
6889 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
6890 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart. Because of
6891 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
6892 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.
</p
>
6894 <p
>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
6895 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
6898 <blockquote
><pre
>
6904 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
6906 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
6907 </pre
></blockquote
>
6909 <p
>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
6912 <blockquote
><pre
>
6913 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-
2.88
6918 </pre
></blockquote
>
6920 <p
>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
6921 sysvinit are not set by upstart. Not sure if it is intentional or not
6922 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.
</p
>
6924 <p
>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
6925 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
6931 <title>A manual for standards wars...
</title>
6932 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html
</link>
6933 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html
</guid>
6934 <pubDate>Sun,
6 Jun
2010 14:
15:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6935 <description><p
>Via the
6936 <a href=
"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~
3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-
10.html
">blog
6937 of Rob Weir
</a
> I came across the very interesting essay named
6938 <a href=
"http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf
">The Art of
6939 Standards Wars
</a
> (PDF
25 pages). I recommend it for everyone
6940 following the standards wars of today.
</p
>
6945 <title>Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site
</title>
6946 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html
</link>
6947 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html
</guid>
6948 <pubDate>Thu,
3 Jun
2010 12:
05:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6949 <description><p
>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
6950 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
6951 information extracted from each machine. The script to do so is
6952 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
6953 the Skolelinux build servers:
</p
>
6955 <blockquote
><pre
>
6956 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
6958 Dell Computer Corporation
1
6961 eserver xSeries
345 -[
8670M1X]-
1
6965 </pre
></blockquote
>
6967 <p
>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
6968 provided in each machine. Here there are Intel machines without model
6969 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
6970 machines listed as [no-dmi-info]. One can add -l as a command line
6971 option to list the individual machines.
</p
>
6973 <p
>A larger list is
6974 <a href=
"http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/
">available from the the
6975 city of Narvik
</a
>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
6976 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly. In their report there
6977 are ~
1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
6978 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
6979 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
6980 collector.
</p
>
6985 <title>KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?
</title>
6986 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html
</link>
6987 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html
</guid>
6988 <pubDate>Tue,
1 Jun
2010 17:
05:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
6989 <description><p
>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
6990 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled. The
6991 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
6992 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
6995 <p
>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
6996 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
583312">#
583312</a
> initially filed
6997 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
6998 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
6999 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
524751">#
524751</a
> initially filed against
7000 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.
</p
>
7002 <p
>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
7003 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
7004 distribution work out of the box for these users. The nvidia driver
7005 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
7006 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
7007 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
7008 distribution that work for them. I have no idea what the solution is,
7009 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.
</p
>
7011 <p
>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.
</p
>
7016 <title>Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing
</title>
7017 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html
</link>
7018 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html
</guid>
7019 <pubDate>Thu,
27 May
2010 23:
55:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7020 <description><p
>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
7021 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
7022 issues are known and should be solved:
7026 <li
>The wicd package seen to
7027 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
508289">break NFS mounting
</a
> and
7028 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
581586">network setup
</a
> when
7029 parallel booting is enabled. No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
7030 seem to be on the case.
</li
>
7032 <li
>The nvidia X driver seem to
7033 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
583312">have a race condition
</a
>
7034 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect. The
7035 maintainer is on the case.
</li
>
7037 <li
>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
7038 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
7039 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
575080">try to switch back
</a
> to
7040 sysv-rc. One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
7041 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
7042 sysv-rc more robust. Will investigate some more and probably upload a
7043 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
7044 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.
</li
>
7046 </ul
></p
>
7048 <p
>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
7049 solvable before Squeeze is released. In addition to these there are
7050 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
7051 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.
</p
>
7053 <p
>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7054 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7055 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
">the
7056 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a
>.
</p
>
7058 <p
>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.
</p
>
7063 <title>More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer
</title>
7064 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html
</link>
7065 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html
</guid>
7066 <pubDate>Sat,
22 May
2010 21:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7067 <description><p
>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
7068 found time today to return to the project. Having to spend less time
7069 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
7070 definitely helped freeing some time.
</p
>
7072 <p
>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu. We
7073 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
7074 get disk and network controllers working. Without having these
7075 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
7076 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
7077 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
7078 an external medium is a support pain. Initially, I expected it to be
7079 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
7080 debian-installer to find and use them. This proved to be wrong.
7081 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
7082 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
7083 /cdrom/firmware/). This also proved to not work, and at this point I
7084 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
7085 going to work.
</p
>
7087 <p
>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
7088 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
7089 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
7090 packages. It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
7091 "external
" media devices. Today I changed it to also look in the
7092 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
7093 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu. I also changed it to
7094 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
7095 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
7096 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
7099 <p
>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
7100 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
7101 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
7102 run these before activating the firmware during installation. The
7103 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
7104 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.
</p
>
7106 <p
>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
7107 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.
</p
>
7112 <title>Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable
</title>
7113 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html
</link>
7114 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html
</guid>
7115 <pubDate>Fri,
14 May
2010 22:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7116 <description><p
>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
7117 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
7118 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
7119 expected, if I am to believe the
7120 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
05/msg00122.html
">input
7121 on debian-devel@
</a
>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
7122 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
7123 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen. If serious problems are
7124 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
7125 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
7128 More information about
7129 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot
">dependency
7130 based boot sequencing
</a
> is available from the Debian wiki. It is
7131 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
7132 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:
</p
>
7134 <blockquote
><pre
>
7136 </pre
></blockquote
>
7138 <p
>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7139 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7140 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
">the
7141 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a
>.
</p
>
7146 <title>Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients
</title>
7147 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html
</link>
7148 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html
</guid>
7149 <pubDate>Fri,
14 May
2010 21:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7150 <description><p
>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
7151 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary
">sitesummary
7152 system
</a
> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
7153 network. Each machine will automatically report its status to the
7154 central server after boot and once per night. The network setup is
7155 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
7156 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines. This is useful
7157 to update the DHCP configuration.
</p
>
7159 <p
>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
7160 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary. Run
7161 this on the collector host:
</p
>
7163 <blockquote
><pre
>
7164 perl -MSiteSummary -e
'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(
" ", get_macaddresses(shift)),
"\n
"; });
'
7165 </pre
></blockquote
>
7167 <p
>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
7168 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.
</p
>
7170 <p
>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
7171 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
7172 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
7173 tables in LDAP using this information. Such tool is unfortunately not
7174 written yet.
</p
>
7179 <title>systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart
</title>
7180 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html
</link>
7181 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html
</guid>
7182 <pubDate>Thu,
13 May
2010 22:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7183 <description><p
>The last few days a new boot system called
7184 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd
">systemd
</a
>
7186 <a href=
"http://
0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html
">introduced
</a
>
7188 to the free software world. I have not yet had time to play around
7189 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
7190 <a href=
"http://upstart.ubuntu.com/
">upstart
</a
>, and might prove to be
7191 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
7192 based boot system. Tollef is
7193 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
580814">in the process
</a
> of getting
7194 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work. I
7195 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
7196 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
7197 at the moment do not.
</p
>
7199 <p
>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
7200 platform support. It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
7201 some new kernel features enabled to function properly. This means
7202 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
7203 system. Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
7204 way forward.
</p
>
7206 <p
>In the mean time, based on the
7207 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
05/msg00122.html
">input
7208 on debian-devel@
</a
> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
7209 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
7210 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
7211 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies. A
7212 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
7213 already in experimental. If all go well, Squeeze will be released
7214 with parallel booting enabled by default.
</p
>
7219 <title>Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing
</title>
7220 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html
</link>
7221 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html
</guid>
7222 <pubDate>Thu,
6 May
2010 23:
25:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7223 <description><p
>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
7224 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
7225 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies. If you want
7226 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
7227 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot
">dependency
7228 based boot sequencing
</a
> is enabled, and add this line to
7229 /etc/default/rcS:
</p
>
7231 <blockquote
><pre
>
7232 CONCURRENCY=makefile
7233 </pre
></blockquote
>
7235 <p
>That is it. It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
7236 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
7237 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
7238 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts. Startpar is configured
7239 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
7240 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
7241 make this happen.
</p
>
7243 <p
>Give it a try, and see if you like the result. If some services
7244 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
7245 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
7246 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies). Report bugs and get
7247 the package maintainers to fix it. :)
</p
>
7249 <p
>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
7250 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct. I
7251 expect we will get there in Squeeze+
1, if we get manage to test and
7252 fix the remaining issues.
</p
>
7254 <p
>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
7255 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
7256 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
">the
7257 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a
>.
</p
>
7262 <title>Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing
</title>
7263 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html
</link>
7264 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html
</guid>
7265 <pubDate>Mon,
27 Jul
2009 23:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7266 <description><p
>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version
2.87dsf-
2,
7267 and the upload of insserv version
1.12.0-
10 yesterday, Debian unstable
7268 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing. This
7269 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
7270 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
7271 installation. Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
7272 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.
</p
>
7274 <p
>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
7275 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
7276 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.
</p
>
7281 <title>Taking over sysvinit development
</title>
7282 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html
</link>
7283 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html
</guid>
7284 <pubDate>Wed,
22 Jul
2009 23:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7285 <description><p
>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
7286 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
7287 take over the package and become the new upstream. The number of
7288 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
7289 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
7290 the package up to date.
</p
>
7292 <p
>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
7293 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman. About
10 days ago, I made
7294 a new upstream tarball with version number
2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
7295 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
7296 distributions. We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
7297 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge. Since the
7298 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
7299 upstream project at
<a href=
"http://savannah.nongnu.org/
">Savannah
</a
>, and continue
7300 development there. The project is registered and currently waiting
7301 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
7302 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
7303 working on the future release.
</p
>
7305 <p
>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
7306 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.
</p
>
7311 <title>Debian boots quicker and quicker
</title>
7312 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html
</link>
7313 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html
</guid>
7314 <pubDate>Wed,
24 Jun
2009 21:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7315 <description><p
>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
7316 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
7317 could find more ways to speed up the boot system. This was an Ubuntu
7319 <a href=
"https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint
">developer
7320 gathering
</a
>. It was quite productive. We also discussed the future
7321 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
7322 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
7323 asynchronous and event base. The Ubuntu approach using udev and
7324 upstart might be a good way forward. Time will show.
</p
>
7326 <p
>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
7327 process in Debian. All of these should be applied to get a quick
7332 <li
>Use dash as /bin/sh.
</li
>
7334 <li
>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
7335 clock is in UTC.
</li
>
7337 <li
>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
7338 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot
">dependency
7339 based boot sequencing
</a
>, and enable concurrent booting.
</li
>
7343 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
7344 <a href=
"http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/
">Carlos
7347 <p
>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
7348 unstable yesterday. When we tested it, we were able to cut
6 seconds
7349 from the boot sequence. It depend on very correct dependency
7350 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
7351 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
7352 using this.
</p
>
7354 <p
>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
7355 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
7356 startup speed as well. Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
7357 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
7358 possible to run a of them in the same process. A quick way to test
7359 this would be to enable insserv and run
'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
7360 insserv
'. Will need to test if that work. :)
</p
>
7365 <title>BSAs påstander om piratkopiering møter motstand
</title>
7366 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html
</link>
7367 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BSAs_p_stander_om_piratkopiering_m_ter_motstand.html
</guid>
7368 <pubDate>Sun,
17 May
2009 23:
05:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7369 <description><p
>Hvert år de siste årene har BSA, lobbyfronten til de store
7370 programvareselskapene som Microsoft og Apple, publisert en rapport der
7371 de gjetter på hvor mye piratkopiering påfører i tapte inntekter i
7372 ulike land rundt om i verden. Resultatene er tendensiøse. For noen
7374 <a href=
"http://global.bsa.org/globalpiracy2008/studies/globalpiracy2008.pdf
">siste
7375 rapport
</a
>, og det er flere kritiske kommentarer publisert de siste
7376 dagene. Et spesielt interessant kommentar fra Sverige,
7377 <a href=
"http://www.idg.se/
2.1085/
1.229795/bsa-hoftade-sverigesiffror
">BSA
7378 höftade Sverigesiffror
</a
>, oppsummeres slik:
</p
>
7381 I sin senaste rapport slår BSA fast att
25 procent av all mjukvara i
7382 Sverige är piratkopierad. Det utan att ha pratat med ett enda svenskt
7383 företag.
"Man bör nog kanske inte se de här siffrorna som helt
7384 exakta
", säger BSAs Sverigechef John Hugosson.
7387 <p
>Mon tro om de er like metodiske når de gjetter på andelen piratkopiering i Norge? To andre kommentarer er
<a
7388 href=
"http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/comment/
2242134/bsa-piracy-figures-shot-reality
">BSA
7389 piracy figures need a shot of reality
</a
> og
<a
7390 href=
"http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/
3958/
125/
">Does The WIPO
7391 Copyright Treaty Work?
</a
></p
>
7393 <p
>Fant lenkene via
<a
7394 href=
"http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=
09/
05/
17/
1632242">oppslag
7395 på Slashdot
</a
>.
</p
>
7400 <title>IDG mener linux i servermarkedet vil vokse med
21% i
2009</title>
7401 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IDG_mener_linux_i_servermarkedet_vil_vokse_med_21__i_2009.html
</link>
7402 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IDG_mener_linux_i_servermarkedet_vil_vokse_med_21__i_2009.html
</guid>
7403 <pubDate>Thu,
7 May
2009 22:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7404 <description><p
>Kom over
7405 <a href=
"http://news.cnet.com/
8301-
13505_3-
10216873-
16.html
">interessante
7406 tall
</a
> fra IDG om utviklingen av linuxservermarkedet. Fikk meg til
7407 å tenke på antall tjenermaskiner ved Universitetet i Oslo der jeg
7408 jobber til daglig. En rask opptelling forteller meg at vi har
490
7409 (
61%) fysiske unix-tjener (mest linux men også noen solaris) og
196
7410 (
25%) windowstjenere, samt
112 (
14%) virtuelle unix-tjenere. Med den
7411 bakgrunnskunnskapen kan jeg godt tro at IDG er inne på noe.
</p
>
7416 <title>Kryptert harddisk - naturligvis
</title>
7417 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html
</link>
7418 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kryptert_harddisk___naturligvis.html
</guid>
7419 <pubDate>Sat,
2 May
2009 15:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7420 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1658676.ece
">Dagens
7421 IT melder
</a
> at Intel hevder at det er dyrt å miste en datamaskin,
7422 når en tar tap av arbeidstid, fortrolige dokumenter,
7423 personopplysninger og alt annet det innebærer. Det er ingen tvil om
7424 at det er en kostbar affære å miste sin datamaskin, og det er årsaken
7425 til at jeg har kryptert harddisken på både kontormaskinen og min
7426 bærbare. Begge inneholder personopplysninger jeg ikke ønsker skal
7427 komme på avveie, den første informasjon relatert til jobben min ved
7428 Universitetet i Oslo, og den andre relatert til blant annet
7429 foreningsarbeide. Kryptering av diskene gjør at det er lite
7430 sannsynlig at dophoder som kan finne på å rappe maskinene får noe ut
7431 av dem. Maskinene låses automatisk etter noen minutter uten bruk,
7432 og en reboot vil gjøre at de ber om passord før de vil starte opp.
7433 Jeg bruker Debian på begge maskinene, og installasjonssystemet der
7434 gjør det trivielt å sette opp krypterte disker. Jeg har LVM på toppen
7435 av krypterte partisjoner, slik at alt av datapartisjoner er kryptert.
7436 Jeg anbefaler alle å kryptere diskene på sine bærbare. Kostnaden når
7437 det er gjort slik jeg gjør det er minimale, og gevinstene er
7438 betydelige. En bør dog passe på passordet. Hvis det går tapt, må
7439 maskinen reinstalleres og alt er tapt.
</p
>
7441 <p
>Krypteringen vil ikke stoppe kompetente angripere som f.eks. kjøler
7442 ned minnebrikkene før maskinen rebootes med programvare for å hente ut
7443 krypteringsnøklene. Kostnaden med å forsvare seg mot slike angripere
7444 er for min del høyere enn gevinsten. Jeg tror oddsene for at
7445 f.eks. etteretningsorganisasjoner har glede av å titte på mine
7446 maskiner er minimale, og ulempene jeg ville oppnå ved å forsøke å
7447 gjøre det vanskeligere for angripere med kompetanse og ressurser er
7448 betydelige.
</p
>
7453 <title>Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot
</title>
7454 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html
</link>
7455 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html
</guid>
7456 <pubDate>Sat,
2 May
2009 15:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7457 <description><p
>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
7458 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
7459 do not yet know them.
</p
>
7461 <p
>The first one is
<a href=
"http://valgrind.org/
">valgrind
</a
>, a
7462 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
7463 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run
'valgrind program
',
7464 and it will report any problems on stdout. It is even better if the
7465 program include debug information. With debug information, it is able
7466 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
7467 occurs. It can report things like
'reading past memory block in file
7468 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M
', and
7469 'using uninitialised value in control logic
'. This tool has made it
7470 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
7471 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
7473 <p
>The second one is
7474 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity
">Coverity
</a
> which is
7475 a source code checker. It is able to process the source of a program
7476 and find problems in the logic without running the program. It
7477 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
7478 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel. It is now a commercial tool
7479 and the company behind it is running
7480 <a href=
"http://www.scan.coverity.com/
">a community service
</a
> for the
7481 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
7482 their source checked for free. Several thousand defects have been
7483 found and fixed so far. It can find errors like
'lock L taken in file
7484 X line N is never released if exiting in line M
', or
'the code in file
7485 Y lines O to P can never be executed
'. The projects included in the
7486 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
7487 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.
</p
>
7489 <p
>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
7490 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
7491 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
7492 surrounded by today.
</p
>
7497 <title>No patch is not better than a useless patch
</title>
7498 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html
</link>
7499 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html
</guid>
7500 <pubDate>Tue,
28 Apr
2009 09:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7501 <description><p
>Julien Blache
7502 <a href=
"http://blog.technologeek.org/
2009/
04/
12/
214">claim that no
7503 patch is better than a useless patch
</a
>. I completely disagree, as a
7504 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
7505 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
7506 time on fixing it. No patch do not provide any of these positive
7507 properties.
</p
>
7512 <title>Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications
</title>
7513 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html
</link>
7514 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html
</guid>
7515 <pubDate>Mon,
30 Mar
2009 11:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7516 <description><p
>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
7517 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure. It is the
7518 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
7519 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
7520 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
7521 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
7522 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
7523 application.
</p
>
7525 <p
>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
7526 independently of the server applications. One can even allow users to
7527 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
7528 protocol and format. In the normal case, only one client application
7529 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
7530 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
7531 blocked from doing so.
</p
>
7533 <p
>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
7534 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
7535 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
7536 requirements change.
</p
>
7538 <p
>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
7539 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
7540 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.
</p
>
7545 <title>Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering
</title>
7546 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html
</link>
7547 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html
</guid>
7548 <pubDate>Sun,
29 Mar
2009 21:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7549 <description><p
>I
'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
7550 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering. I got a bit done tuning the
7551 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
7552 implementation avahi. It look like it could be useful for us. Almost
7553 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
7554 get to know the Skolelinux system. Walter Bender, involved in the
7555 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
7556 also helped me improve my OLPC installation. He also showed me that
7557 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
7558 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian. As a
7559 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu. We also
7560 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
7561 proved to be too hard for us. The application seem to need more work
7562 before it is ready for me. I look forward to getting home and relax
7568 <title>Time for new LDAP schemas replacing RFC
2307?
</title>
7569 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html
</link>
7570 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html
</guid>
7571 <pubDate>Sun,
29 Mar
2009 20:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
7572 <description><p
>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
7573 optimal. There is RFC
2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
7574 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC
2307bis, with
7575 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory. The RFC
7576 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
7577 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.
</p
>
7579 <p
>In
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu/Skolelinux
</a
>,
7580 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
7581 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
7582 and LTSP configuration in LDAP. These objects have a lot in common,
7583 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
7584 object per entity. For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
7585 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
7586 DNS information and another with DHCP information. The schemas
7587 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
7588 object. In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
7589 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
7590 It just do not scale. I believe it is time for a few RFC
7591 specifications to cleam up this mess.
</p
>
7593 <p
>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
7594 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
7595 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
7596 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.
</p
>
7598 <p
>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
7599 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.
</p
>
7601 <p
>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
7602 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up. Time to start a
7603 new IETF work group?
</p
>
7608 <title>Endelig er Debian Lenny gitt ut
</title>
7609 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html
</link>
7610 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Endelig_er_Debian_Lenny_gitt_ut.html
</guid>
7611 <pubDate>Sun,
15 Feb
2009 11:
50:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
7612 <description><p
>Endelig er
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/
">Debian
</a
>
7613 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2009/
20090214">Lenny
</a
> gitt ut.
7614 Et langt steg videre for Debian-prosjektet, og en rekke nye
7615 programpakker blir nå tilgjengelig for de av oss som bruker den
7616 stabile utgaven av Debian. Neste steg er nå å få
7617 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Skolelinux
</a
> /
7618 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/
">Debian Edu
</a
> ferdig
7619 oppdatert for den nye utgaven, slik at en oppdatert versjon kan
7620 slippes løs på skolene. Takk til alle debian-utviklerne som har
7621 gjort dette mulig. Endelig er f.eks. fungerende avhengighetsstyrt
7622 bootsekvens tilgjengelig i stabil utgave, vha pakken
7623 <tt
>insserv
</tt
>.
</p
>
7628 <title>Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release
</title>
7629 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html
</link>
7630 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html
</guid>
7631 <pubDate>Sun,
7 Dec
2008 12:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
7632 <description><p
>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
7633 Oslo. Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
7634 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
7635 LTSP installation. LTSP now work out of the box on the
10-network.
7636 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
7637 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box. Was working on getting the
7638 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
7639 finish it before the weekend was up.
</p
>
7641 <p
>Did not find time to look at the
4 VGA cards in one box we got from
7642 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
7643 development gathering. Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
7644 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
7645 of these cards.
</p
>
7650 <title>The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian
</title>
7651 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html
</link>
7652 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html
</guid>
7653 <pubDate>Tue,
25 Nov
2008 00:
10:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
7654 <description><p
>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
7655 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
7656 default in Debian Edu. We need an embedded video playing plugin with
7657 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
7658 all the multimedia content available on the web. The test results and
7659 notes are available on
7660 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia
">the
7661 Debian wiki
</a
>. I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
7662 fill this need. My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
7663 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages. A lot of the MIME
7664 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
7665 video/ogg), just do not work. And simple formats like the
7666 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn
't supported by the
7667 totem and vlc plugins. I hope the situation will improve soon. No
7668 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.
</p
>
7670 <p
>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin. It seem to
7671 be the only one fitting our needs. :/
</p
>